Financial Crime Matters

Kieran talks with Jacqueline Shinfield, partner at Blakes, Cassels & Graydon about the latest legislative and regulatory requirements from Finance Canada and FINTRAC that are part of the nation’s renewed vigor to fight financial crime. Ahead of the ACAMS Annual Canada Conference on 3, 4 November, Jackie and Kieran discuss Canada’s new cost recovery plan’s impact on FINTRAC regulated entities, issues arising from ongoing regulatory examinations, technological gaps in implementing the new electronic fund transfer reporting requirements and lessons from the Cullen Commission. “If anyone is interested in learning about money laundering, ways to launder money, trade-based money laundering, there are so many incredible papers, affidavits online that make compelling reading if you are an AML geek,” Jackie says of the work of the Cullen Commission, which is set to end oral submission this month and due to release a final report by 15 December.

Kieran talks with Jessica Davis, president of Insight Threat Intelligence and the author of the just released “Illicit Money: Financing Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century.” Jessica discusses her comprehensive book, which is based on her study of some 50 terrorist organizations and terror attacks, in the wake of the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan and the rise of ideologically motivated violent extremist throughout the world. “Attacks are often self-funded” and difficult to track whereas funding efforts to maintain terrorist organizations is generally done on a larger scale and often leaves a trail, says Jessica, who has served more than 20 years in various defense and intelligence roles in Canada, including four-and-a-half years as a senior strategic analyst with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). This episode is sponsored by NICE Actimize: https://www.niceactimize.com

Kieran talks with Gurvais Grigg, Chainalysis’ Global Public Sector Chief Technology Officer, about tracking cryptocurrency used in fraud, ransomware and other crimes. Whether exchange traded digital currencies or so-called privacy coins, companies like Chainalysis, in tandem with law enforcement, are increasingly identifying cybercriminals and seizing their illicit funds, says Gurvais, who served more than 23 years with the FBI prior to joining the blockchain forensics company earlier this year. “You see patterns and similarities. You may even see previously identified actors re-emerge,” Gurvais, who left the FBI as an assistant director and head of the crime lab, says of the fingerprints that cybercriminals leave. This episode is sponsored by NICE Actimize’s Let’s Talk FinCrime: https://info.nice.com/lets-talk-fincrime.html

Kieran talks with Elizabeth “Liz” Roper, chief of the Cybercrime and Identity Theft Bureau within the New York County District Attorney’s office. As head of one of the most sophisticated anti-cybercrime labs in the world, Liz details what she sees as the most pressing emerging cybercrime threats and offers encouragement to prosecutors throughout the country who are challenged by spiraling incidents of cybercrime in their communities. “From the day we first open a case, we’re working together with investigators, detectives, analysts and forensics experts to strategize,” says the 15-year veteran of the Manhattan district attorney’s office about the advantages of having cybercrime and other expertise under one roof. “That’s the key to our success.” This Financial Crime Matters episode is sponsored by: Refinitiv - http://www.refinitiv.com Thomson Reuters - www.tr.com/risk-fraud

Kieran talks with former prosecutor Liz Loewy, who founded the elder abuse bureau in the New York District Attorney’s office in 1994 and is co-founder and current COO of EverSafe, a company that utilizes financial technology to protect elderly and vulnerable individuals from financial abuse. “Loved ones have a responsibility to look out for one another,” Liz tells Kieran in describing how families should adopt a strategy to protect all their members from financial crime. With the rise in digital banking, Liz argues for a “fight fire with fire” strategy that relies on fintech to prevent and detect fraud and other criminal threats. Along the way, Liz also addresses what’s real and what’s not with regard to the abuse of older people in the Netflix movie “I Care a Lot”

Kieran talks with Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director of the Counter Extremism Project, about the rising threat from right-wing domestic terror groups. Rooted in varying myths of nationalist identity, right-wing extremist groups are increasingly cooperating with one another across nation state borders, embracing long-discredited tropes that glorify white-supremacy and antisemitism, Hans tells Kieran during their discussion. While identifying some of the self-funding individual violent actors, he also describes some of the interlinked extremist groups that are raising funds with merchandise and festival ticket sales as well as criminal actions with an eye to enabling financial institutions to identify funds associated with these extremists.

Kieran talks with James Cohen, Executive Director at Transparency International Canada, about what’s wrong with Canada, including the rise in money laundering via “snow washing” and the corrupting influence of illicit foreign fund flows from transnational criminal groups. During their talk, James discusses the battle to establish a corporate ownership registry in Canada, which received initial funding in the nation’s budget released shortly after the interview, the need for a coordinated federal response to money laundering, and his optimism that Canada is addressing financial crime.

Kieran talks with Sara Crowe, Strategic Initiatives Director for Financial Systems at Polaris, a not-for-profit dedicated to ending sex and human labor trafficking. During their talk, Sara touches on Polaris’ efforts to connect trafficked individuals to law enforcement and social services through its U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline and the use of data drawn from call-ins to the hotline to create frameworks to combat human trafficking. Financial institutions are uniquely positioned to address human trafficking, since it is a form of commerce, according to Sara, who shares some of the typologies that can help financial institutions identify the proceeds of trafficking. Finally, Sara calls on banks and other financial enterprises to join the fight against trafficking as invaluable partners with law enforcement and organizations like Polaris.

Kieran talks with Louise Shelley, PhD, Director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) at George Mason University, about how terrorist organizations are funding themselves by engaging in illicit trade finance, often in partnership with transnational criminal organization. During their discussion, Dr. Shelly, the author of numerous publications whose most recent book is “Dark Commerce: How a New Illicit Economy is Threatening our Future,” shares typologies and identifies some of the organizations, facilitators and financiers engaged in illicit trade. While crediting the financial services industry with taking steps to stem illicit trade, she calls on the industry and others to do more, not least by joining with law enforcement and others in effective public private partnerships focused on illicit trade.

A special episode for everyone monitoring the critical and shifting sanctions landscape. Kieran interviews Dr Justine Walker (who has her own podcast series ‘The Sanctions Space’) about the recent unprecedented scale of change of sanctions, key emerging trends, and the Biden administration’s potential approach to China, Iran, North Korea and others. Next week we’re also hosting our first ACAMS Global Sanctions Summit, with speakers from White House, World Bank, UN, OFAC and European Commission. Find out more at: https://www.acams.org/en/events/conferences/sanctions-space-summit. And subscribe to Justine’s podcast at www.soundcloud.com/sanctionsspace to hear more of the stories behind sanctions.