Episodes

  • Prosecuting Bank Insiders Gone Bad, with the DOJ’s Michael Grady

    Prosecuting Bank Insiders Gone Bad, with the DOJ’s Michael Grady
    Oct 29 2024
    In this episode of Financial Crime Matters, Kieran sits down with Michael Grady, chief of the bank integrity unit at the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division during the ACAMS Assembly Vegas Conference in September. Mike talks about the BIU’s remit to pursue criminal infractions at banks, payment service providers, cryptocurrency exchanges and other financial businesses subject to the Bank Secrecy Act. During their conversation, Mike discusses some specific cases involving institutions actively involved in breaking anti-money laundering, terror finance and sanctions laws, which pose a threat to national security.
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    22 mins
  • Parsing the TD Bank Prosecution and Regulatory Settlements, with Craig Timm

    Parsing the TD Bank Prosecution and Regulatory Settlements, with Craig Timm
    Oct 24 2024
    In this episode of “Financial Crime Matters”, Kieran talks with ACAMS colleague, Craig Timm, Senior Director of AML at ACAMS. Craig and Kieran do a deep dive into the recent settlements by TD Bank with the US Department of Justice, the Federal Reserve Board, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network that resulted in more than $3 billion in monetary penalties, ongoing remediation and monitorships, as well as the prosecution of two bank insiders. With more individual prosecutions likely, Craig and Kieran layout the lessons for financial institutions from settlements and discuss how compliance professionals can protect themselves from culpability when their financial institutions go astray.
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    24 mins
  • Industry Leaders: Jason Somrak

    Industry Leaders: Jason Somrak
    Oct 18 2024
    Detecting True Crimes with Great Accuracy, with Oracle’s Jason Somrak In this inaugural episode of “Financial Crime Matters: Industry Leaders,” Kieran sits down with Jason Somrak, Chief of Product & Strategy for Financial Crime & Compliance at Oracle Software. Jason talks about the Holy Grail of anti-financial crime practice: the ability to “detect true crime with great accuracy,” which includes canceling out the noise of false positives. Jason and Kieran also discuss the possibilities and limits of current technology as well as the promise for future advancements in fighting financial crime. During their conversation, Jason also takes a stab at defining what we really talk about when we talk about artificial intelligence.
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    27 mins
  • Understanding Canada’s Enhanced Regulatory Regime, with Jacqueline Shinfield

    Understanding Canada’s Enhanced Regulatory Regime, with Jacqueline Shinfield
    Sep 19 2024
    Understanding Canada’s Enhanced Regulatory Regime, with Jacqueline Shinfield. In this episode of “Financial Crime Matters,” Kieran talks with Toronto-based attorney Jacqueline Shinfield, co-lead of Blakes’ Financial Services Regulatory Group. Jackie details the unfolding revolution in Canadian anti-money laundering and counter terror finance, including creation of a safe harbor for information sharing among FINTRAC regulated entities and new sanctions reporting requirements. Setting the stage for ACAMS upcoming “The Assembly Canada” November 6 and 7, Jackie also talks about how far Canada has come since the Cullen Commission Report by explaining the new role title insurers will play in verifying beneficial ownership in real estate transactions and the new powers FINTRAC will have to examine foreign interference in Canada’s financial system.
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    22 mins
  • Fighting Push-Payment Fraud and Other Online Scams, with Santander’s Chris Ainsley

    Fighting Push-Payment Fraud and Other Online Scams, with Santander’s Chris Ainsley
    Sep 4 2024
    In this episode of “Financial Crime Matters,” Kieran talks with Chris Ainsley, head of fraud risk management at Santander Bank. Drawing on more than 20-year history at Santander, Chris details how financial institutions like his are fighting the current spike in online fraud that utilizes elaborate schemes to get customers to authorize payments from their accounts into the accounts of scammers. With it now being possible to conduct all our banking, buying, selling and a host of other transactions online, banks are tasked with educating customers about the intricate subterfuges to trick them into authorizing payments to criminals, says Chris. Financial institutions are having “very complex conversations” with customers to save them from victimization. “It’s not just “why are you making a payment at 2 pm in a foreign country’” anymore, which often involved a stolen or cloned ATM card that the bank quickly canceled and replaced, Chris says. Now, it’s sometimes about engaging a client at length as to why they want to make a seemingly dodgy transaction and warning them of the risk.
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    31 mins
  • Preventing Crime and Adopting a Regulatory Framework, with Kraken’s CJ Rinaldi

    Preventing Crime and Adopting a Regulatory Framework, with Kraken’s CJ Rinaldi
    Aug 6 2024
    Kieran talks with CJ Rinaldi, chief compliance officer at Kraken Digital Asset Exchange, about the virtual asset service provider’s efforts to prevent money laundering, terror finance, sanctions busting, and fraud. Drawing on his experience as senior counsel at the SEC and at financial institutions, CJ also discusses the kind of regulatory regime the cryptocurrency industry needs as well as the benefits and limits of blockchain transparency for financial transactions.
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    28 mins
  • Surviving Regulatory and Law Enforcement Scrutiny as a Compliance Officer, with Christina Rea

    Surviving Regulatory and Law Enforcement Scrutiny as a Compliance Officer, with Christina Rea
    Jul 23 2024
    In this episode of Financial Crime Matters, Kieran talks with Christina Rea about her brief tenure at Binance.US as interim chief compliance officer. Christina discusses what it was like to head U.S. compliance for Binance.com, the world’s largest digital assets trading platform, as it underwent scrutiny from regulators and law enforcement that ultimately culminated in a $4.3 billion penalty against Binance.com and a guilty plea for money laundering failures by the VASP’s co-founder Changpeng Zhao that resulted in his paying a $50 million fine and the possibility of up to 18 months in prison. Christina, who launched a consulting firm after resigning from Binance.US after about six months at the VASP, also touches on what it takes to protect yourself as a compliance officer whose business is facing tough oversight.
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    30 mins
  • Tracking crypto and money mules, with IRS-CI’s Guy Ficco

    Tracking crypto and money mules, with IRS-CI’s Guy Ficco
    Jul 11 2024
    Kieran talks with Guy Ficco, the Chief of IRS Criminal Investigation. They discuss the IRS-CI’s recent success in tracking illicit cryptocurrency transactions. and the threat from money mules. Guy also identifies some of the latest typologies his agency is seeing, while crediting suspicious activity reports from financial institutions as catalysts for investigations, arrests and successful prosecutions.
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    24 mins