In this episode of “Financial Crime Matters,” Kieran talks with Andy Greenberg, senior writer at WIRED and author of the blockchain forensic thriller “Tracers In The Dark.” Halfway into their conversation, they are joined by Tigran Gambaryan, head of financial crime compliance at Binance and a former IRS-CI investigator. Andy, Tigran and Kieran discuss Tigran’s detention by Nigerian authorities for 8 months as part of the government's effort to force Binance to pay billions in penalties, which w...
May 30, 2025•24 min
In this episode of “Financial Crime Matters,” Kieran talks with Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler, Senior Director of the Counter-Extremism Project about the current violent threats posed by Islamic radicals, and right-wing and left-wing extremist groups. Drawing on his expertise as Senior Director of the Counter Extremism Project and years of diplomatic service, Hans names the extremist organizations that currently threaten to unleash global violence. While detailing some of the catalysts for the milita...
May 16, 2025•28 min
In this episode of “Financial Crime Matters,” Kieran talks with Geoff White, the author of three crucial books on financial crime, including “The Lazarus Heist: From Hollywood to High Finance: Inside North Korea's Global Cyber War.” Drawing from “The Lazarus Heist” and a plethora of recent information, Geoff details North Korea’s $1.5 billion theft of ether in February from Bybit, a large global cryptocurrency exchange. During their discussion, Geoff provides a decades long history of North Kore...
Mar 18, 2025•31 min
In this episode of “Financial Crime Matters,” Kieran talks with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s Michael Bruno, who is anti-money laundering program manager at the service’s national headquarters. Mike details some of the Inspection Service’s efforts to tackle the theft of bank checks that are “washed” to fraudulently change the payees and amounts and that are all too often stolen during violent attacks on mail carriers. Crediting the Financial Crime Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the Inspect...
Jan 09, 2025•28 min
In this episode of “Financial Crime Matters,” Kieran talks with Claudia Quiroz, Director of the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, or NCET, at the U.S. Justice Department. Claudia and Kieran discuss the rise in cryptocurrency-enabled crime that necessitated NCET’s creation three years ago and the team’s subsequent efforts to prosecute cyber predators and seize the proceeds of their crimes. Serving as a dedicated nerve center staffed by crypto experts within the Computer Crime and Intellec...
Dec 17, 2024•19 min
In this episode of “Financial Crime Matters,” Kieran talks with Adam Levine, Director of Government Engagement for the Child Rescue Coalition (CRC). Adam and Kieran discuss CRC’s efforts to enable law enforcement to trace online child sexual abuse material to its creators and collectors. During their discussion, Adam details some of the typologies associated with child exploitation that in tandem with CRC’s training and technological support has, to date, resulted in the arrest of more than 15,5...
Dec 04, 2024•22 min
In this episode of “Financial Crime Matters,” Kieran talks with three individuals committed to exposing cryptocurrency scams and drawing attention to imprisoned investigative journalist Mech Dara, who is responsible for uncovering the horrific conditions and practices within Cambodian-based crypto fraud compounds. Zeke Faux, author of “Number Go Up,” Danielle Keeton-Olsen, a freelance journalist based in Phnom Penh, and Erin West, Deputy District Attorney, Santa Clara County CA, discuss Dara’s t...
Oct 31, 2024•24 min
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 ac...
Oct 29, 2024•22 min
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. W...
Oct 24, 2024•24 min
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 a...
Oct 18, 2024•27 min
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 fo...
Sep 19, 2024•22 min
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 transaction...
Sep 04, 2024•32 min
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. ---------- This Financial C...
Aug 06, 2024•29 min
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 Zh...
Jul 23, 2024•30 min
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.
Jul 11, 2024•24 min
Kieran talks with Eliza Odom, former Section Chief of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, about the top terror threats the bureau is currently focused on. While having since become deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate, Eliza discusses the seven units within the Counterterrorism Division she once oversaw, particularly focusing on the Financial Targeting and Analysis Unit, and its role interdicting terror funding. While deeply concerned about the actions ...
Jun 24, 2024•28 min
Kieran talks with Hennie Verbeek-Kusters, head of the Netherlands financial intelligence unit, about her leadership over the FIU since its founding in 2008. During their discussion, Hennie details how the Dutch FIU has evolved to face the challenge of evermore sophisticated transnational criminal organizations and the professional money launderers they now utilize. The effort to track and seize drug money has, she says, taken on a new urgency with the unprecedented rise of violence by organized ...
May 30, 2024•24 min
Kieran talks with Molly Moeser, Acting Chief, Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section of the U.S. Justice Department, about MLARS’ efforts to seize illicit assets and, when possible, bring financial restitution to victims of crime. During their talk, Molly discusses the seizure of illicit funds associated with kleptocracy and other crimes, including crypto assets, which require “a whole of government approach” that enlists experts throughout law enforcement. Molly also touches on the importa...
May 15, 2024•24 min
Kieran talks with Jennifer Shasky Calvery, Group Head of Financial Crime Risk at HSBC, a former Director of the Financial Crime Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, and former federal prosecutor. Drawing on her public and private sector experience, Jen details the challenges faced by financial institutions and government and how in partnership they can detect illicit funds and catch bad actors. Jen also talks with Kieran about HSBC’s recent partnership with Google AML AI and the promise artificial in...
Apr 23, 2024•29 min
Kieran talks with Daniel Stipano, partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell and a 30-year veteran of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, about the unfolding requirements of the Corporate Transparency and AML Acts and their impact on law enforcement, and financial as well as non-financial institutions. Dan also weighs in on the current court challenges to the CTA, particularly the recent Federal court ruling that declared it unconstitutional, what the Financial Crime Enforcement Network’s l...
Mar 14, 2024•34 min
Kieran talks with ACAMS colleagues Justine Walker, head of global sanctions and AML risk, and Craig Timm, senior AML director, about the just released “ACAMS Global AFC Threats 2024.” Drawing on 788 in-depth interactions with anti-financial crime professionals that inform the report, Justine and Craig identify the top ten threats currently facing the global AFC community, including budget cuts at financial institutions, the rise of cyber-enabled crime, the fallout from global conflict, and more....
Feb 14, 2024•32 min
Kieran talks with Grant Rabenn, Director, Financial Crimes Legal at Coinbase. Grant, a former federal prosecutor who handled some of the Department of Justice’s earliest crypto cases, discusses the promise of blockchain offerings, while acknowledging the industry’s need to work with regulators to stem their use in financial crime and money laundering. During their conversation, Grant also touches some of the typologies for the illicit use of crypto currency that Coinbase encounters and the value...
Jan 30, 2024•28 min
Kieran talks with Zeke Faux, author of critically acclaimed “Number Go Up,” a comprehensive look at cryptocurrency, DeFi, and NFTs. Zeke, an investigative reporter for Bloomberg BusinessWeek and Bloomberg News, discusses the trek he undertook to understand the boom and sometimes bust of various blockchain offerings. It was a journey that included a New York harbor NFT “ApeFest,” time in the Philippines with erstwhile Axis Infinity gamers who lost everything, a visit to a hotel in Cambodia attach...
Jan 08, 2024•31 min
Kieran talks with Kenneth Rijock, a former Miami-based lawyer who spent a decade as a bag man for drug-traffickers, investing their cash in accounts in the Caribbean and other offshore secrecy havens. Ken describes some of the classic methods he used for laundering money and how law enforcement ultimately caught up with him. Following a prison term, Ken reinvented himself as an anti-money laundering advisor to law enforcement and subsequently the private sector. His story is also told in his boo...
Dec 13, 2023•25 min
Kieran talks with Carly Yoost, CEO and founder of the Child Rescue Coalition, which has created technology that enables law enforcement to identify instances of online child exploitation and locate its perpetrators. During their discussion, Carly details the scope of online child exploitation and how the Coalition provides tools and training to law enforcement in 98 countries that has led to the arrest of over 14,700 child predators.
Nov 15, 2023•19 min
Kieran talks with James Barnacle, Chief of the Financial Crimes Section, Criminal Investigative Division of the FBI, and Christopher Soyez, Assistant Section Chief. Jim and Chris discuss how the FBI works to recover the proceeds of scams on behalf of victims. They credit banks’ suspicious activity reports with being the primary catalyst for the bureau’s successful investigations into COVID-19 related scams, while also questioning a rising reluctance within the industry to aid customers in recove...
Oct 31, 2023•32 min
Kieran talks with Kenneth A. Blanco, Chief Compliance Officer for the Financial Crimes Unit at Citigroup, who is also a former Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) director and before that held several senior roles within the U.S. Department of Justice. Ken and Kieran discuss the challenges of being FinCEN’s chief during the COVID-19 epidemic and his perspective on the Anti-Money Laundering and Corporate Transparency Acts created and passed during his tenure. Having now served within bo...
Oct 16, 2023•25 min
Kieran talks with Seoyoung Kim, Associate Professor of Finance, Department Chair, at Santa Clara University, about the promise and possible perils of decentralized finance. They discuss the recent implosion of several cryptocurrency exchanges and stablecoin minters and the great legal and judicial debate now raging over the regulation of digital assets. In detailing some of the regulatory definitional claims now being adjudicated in U.S. courts, Seoyoung argues that the contested offerings are a...
Aug 30, 2023•24 min
Kieran talks with Rick Small, Director Financial Crimes Program, at Truist, Dan Soto, Chief Compliance Officer, Ally Financial, and John Byrne, Executive Vice President, AML RightSource, about what’s been achieved in the past 40 years in the fight against financial crime and what challenges lay ahead. In anticipation of receiving the “ACAMS Lifetime Achievement Award” at The Assembly in Las Vegas in October, Rick, Dan, and John discuss the successes and shortcomings of past Bank Secrecy Act regu...
Aug 01, 2023•38 min
Kieran talks with Willem Schudel, Head of Department, Financial Crime Supervision (AML/TF) at the Central Bank of the Netherlands, live from The Assembly Europe, ACAMS’ annual conference, held this year in Dublin. Willem discusses the Dutch Central Bank’s preparations for the coming of the European Union’s Anti-Money Laundering Authority, or AMLA, and the bank’s latest initiatives with regulated entities, including expectations they adopt technology that will identify criminal activity and reinf...
Jul 03, 2023•22 min
