Posts in All Fellows
Introducing 2021 Fellow - Andres Betancourt

Andres Betancourt has more than 10 years of experience in compliance and anti-money laundering (AML) within the financial services industry including the Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of Montreal, Royal Bank of Canada and Grant Thornton LLP. As a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist and Certified Financial Crime Specialist, Andres works in the Global AML Audit Centre of Excellence for Scotiabank, which assess the design and operational effectiveness of internal controls. This also includes adherence to bank policies and regulatory requirements, particularly those related to AML, anti-terrorist financing (ATF) and sanctions risk management.

Throughout his career, Andres worked with different financial institutions and advisory firms on regulatory compliance effectiveness reviews of reporting entities with operation hubs in multiple jurisdictions including Canada, the United Kingdom, U.S. and Australia. He also worked on AML and fraud investigations, FINTRAC reporting, regulatory AML remediations, quality assurance program design and testing, compliance training and strategy, Centre of Excellence processes and AML internal control audits. Recently, Andres led and participated in centralized audits for governance, regulatory reporting (LCTR/EFTR), sanctions screening for 2nd Line functions, Trade Finance Canada & Mexico, KYC Review in LATAM, Global AML Transformation initiative and international banking regulatory audit reports (Colombia, Chile, Peru, Mexico, Caribbean and Central America).

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Introducing 2021 International Fellow Josie Preston

Josie is the Nominated Officer and Group MLRO for Caesars Entertainment EMEA, part of the world’s largest casino entertainment company, Caesars Entertainment Inc., best known for Las Vegas properties such as Caesars Palace, Planet Hollywood, and the iconic Playboy Club in London.

Prior to this, she was the Head of Anti Money Laundering and MLRO at the Ritz Club, an exclusive and prestigious Casino in London’s Mayfair district; specialising in direction and oversight of Enhanced Due Diligence teams, with particular expertise in UHNWI, HNWI, and Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) in the Middle East and Europe.

Josie has spent the past 5 years in AML leadership roles involving the establishment, training, and development of teams to combat Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Financial Crime risk within the Casino gaming sphere, through internal strategic policymaking, risk assessment, threat analysis, and procedural development. She is a member of the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) and the Gambling Anti-Money Laundering Group (GAMLG) industry bodies and active working groups.

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Introducing 2021 International Fellow - Katharina Stoll

Katharina Stoll is a Senior Lead Auditor for Anti-Financial Crime Compliance at Commerzbank AG where she leads national and international audits of the bank’s global AML and Sanctions compliance program. Before joining Commerzbank, Katharina worked at Protiviti as a Senior Consultant in Internal Audit performing and leading various risk-oriented audit activities. In this capacity, Katharina also implemented a group-wide audit program for sanctions & embargoes for one of the top 3 German banks, including the recording of the control framework and designing the audit program. Katharina started her career as an art historian at Bonhams in London, Poly Auction in Beijing, and Yves Siebers Auktionen in Stuttgart.

Katharina holds a Master’s degree in Art History from the University of Frankfurt as well as PGCertificates from SOAS, University of London, and the University of Glasgow. Leveraging her education as an art historian and her work experience in the AML sector, Katharina’s PhD research with the University of Glasgow’s School of Law is focused on money laundering in the art market. She has contributed to conferences, events, and webinars as a speaker with ACAMS (2019), Deloitte (2020), the Transatlantic Cultural Property Crime Symposium (2018), and the Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA) (2017).

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Introducing 2021 International Fellow - Sue Scott

Sue Scott is a business coach, mentor and risk management professional with over twenty years of experience working in financial services. Her much loved career at HSBC spans regulatory and financial crime transformation, risk advisory, policy development and financial crime training. Sue was Global Head of Anti-bribery & Corruption at HSBC as well as being responsible for co-ordinating across specialist areas for the development of global financial crime policies and employee training programmes.

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Introducing 2021 Fellow - Thomas Feray

Thomas Feray is a highly experienced investigator with extensive expertise in the public and private sectors.

His career with the French Gendarmerie brought him to serve in specialized serious crime units including the Versailles Serious Crime Unit (Division Financial crimes) and the Cayenne Serious Crime Unit as part of the special operation “Harpie Orpaillage” (operation aimed at fighting against the illegal gold mining in French Guyana). As part of his missions, Thomas Feray lead several complex investigations, related to Labour law crimes, counterfeiting of luxury goods and to the money laundering of the proceeds of these crimes.

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Introducing 2021 Fellow - Gregory Dellas

Gregory Dellas is the Chief Compliance and Innovation Officer at ECOMMBX, an Electronic Money Institution with a flexible FinTech platform for cross-border inter-bank transactions.

Whilst at the Bank of Cyprus, Gregory led the anti-money laundering (AML) risk management team within the International Banking Services Division and acted as the local compliance officer. His team was responsible for the onboarding of high-risk clients, the evaluation of large and complex transactions, as well as the review of existing and approval of new high-risk client relationships. In addition, Dellas was responsible for providing advice, guidance and specialized training to management and staff on AML and regulatory compliance matters.

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Introducing 2021 Fellow - Greg Bridgeo

Greg began his personal development journey over 40 years ago in his grandfathers recycling business before attending university and eventually becoming a commercial banker. He has since worked both in Canada and the United Kingdom with teams from across the globe and held executive roles in operations, transformation, remediation and compliance.

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Introducing 2021 Fellow - Eugenio (Gene) DiMira

Gene is The AML Shop’s Chief Identify Officer and delivers a “digital first” philosophy by creating a balanced hub where digital ID and AML initiatives connect as an expert shopper for clients and industry insider for technology firms.

As one of Canada’s leading voices in the anti-money laundering (AML) industry and digital identification space, Gene has spanned much of his career designing, implementing and sustaining AML/ATF programs including global CAMLO reporting, FATF risk-based approach guidelines and digital identity programs nationally and internationally.

Gene started his career running the systems, operations and compliance controls for financial planning firms offering securities, banking and insurance products. His compliance focus progressed with Manulife, where he most recently served as the Head of Global Compliance AMLATF program, responsible for the program design, relationships with AML vendors and working with Industry peers providing responses to government consultations.

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Introducing 2021 Fellow - Eric Hansen

Eric Hansen (CAMS, FIS) has been advising clients on issues pertaining to regulatory compliance and operational risk for 15 years. At present, he is the Head of Sales and Marketing at ManchesterCF, a Toronto-based firm that provides online financial intelligence training programs to financial institutions, financial intelligence units and law enforcement.

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Introducing 2021 Fellow - Amanda Dishaw

Amanda began her 18 year career in Financial Services at CIBC as a teller while in University, progressing to branch operations and management of a client portfolio before receiving her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Alberta. Amanda furthered her career in Financial Services when she completed her Canadian Securities Course and became a Financial Advisor to high-net worth individuals in Vancouver in 2006.

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Introducing 2021 Fellow - Cameron Field

Prior to joining BMO’s Anti-money laundering team Cam spent over 30 years with the Toronto Police Service where he served in uniform patrol, criminal investigations, drug enforcement, child abuse and sex crimes unit, behavioural assessment and the investigative training lead. For five years he was also the Officer in Charge of the Corporate Crimes Team.

He joined BMO in 2017 and now works in the Anti-money Laundering team and is the intelligence lead for the Canadian Financial Intelligence Unit. He has published articles on public private partnerships, cyber based financial crime, illegal wildlife trafficking and human trafficking and is authoring two chapters for upcoming academic journals on financial crime.

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Introducing 2021 Fellow - Jennifer Arnold

Jennifer Arnold is the CEO and co-founder of MinervaAI, a platform to help financial crimes investigators make better decisions, faster. Jen is the former VP of Governance and Programs at Wells Fargo Canada, and the former Sr. Director of AML Transformation at CIBC.

Jen is a self professed AML nerd working on projects from systems design and implementation to training and policy and process work. Her most recent venture, MinervaAI, focuses on making the investigation process efficient, effective and fully compliant.

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Introducing 2021 Fellow - Victor Tay

Victor started his risk and compliance career in 2007 at RBC, as an AML Systems Analyst, and has held progressively senior positions. He was the Senior Director of AML Strategy and Solutions at CIBC, and his latest financial organization, he was the VP of Risk Services and the Chief Anti-Money Laundering Officer (CAMLO) for Wells Fargo Canada.

With his experience and passion for technology, Victor decided to start his own firm and has co-founded Minerva AI. A technology company focused on empowering financial crime investigators through the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

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Introducing 2021 Fellow - Kevin deBruyckere

Upon completion of a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Calgary, Kevin entered into a law enforcement career when he joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 1986. His policing career took him throughout the province of British Columbia; ultimately specializing in commercial crime and corruption investigations. The highlight of Kevin’s career was the three years he spent as a member of the executive team for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Integrated Security Unit, contributing to the success of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

In May of 2015, Kevin left the RCMP as the Criminal Operations Officer responsible for the federal policing program in British Columbia overseeing a number of programs including national security, border integrity, commercial crime and transnational organized crime investigations. He then joined HSBC Bank Canada as the Head of Anti-money laundering investigations for Canada with offices in Vancouver and Toronto. After nearly 4 years with HSBC, Kevin joined the British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC) as the Director of AML and Investigations in April 2019.

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Introducing 2021 Fellow - Caroline Tutakiewicz

Caroline Tutakiewicz is an experienced risk management professional specializing in AML/ATF and human trafficking initiatives. Caroline has previously held roles of Senior Manager, Terrorist Financing Investigations and Director, Head of Money Laundering Investigations at the Royal Bank of Canada. In this capacity, she executed RBC’s risk management strategy, balanced regulatory requirements and supported the national growth of RBC’s AML unit. Throughout her AML career she has led and executed projects in organized crime, terrorist financing, and human trafficking that continue to have significant impact on Canada’s regulatory framework.

In her current role as Director, Strategy and Innovation at RBC Ventures, Caroline develops new and aligns existing ventures with RBC Royal Bank with an aim at converting a portion of the 3.2M users to RBC clients. Caroline’s unique experience in risk management has established her as a thought leader in start-ups bridging risk mitigation with the need to go to market and scale quickly.

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Introducing 2021 Fellow - Samantha Sheen

Sam is a financial crime prevention professional with over 15 years of practical experience in compliance. Sam's previous work experience includes working as MLRO, Data Protection Officer and CCO and Group Head of AML for various financial institutions, both offshore and in Europe.

Sam also worked offshore for several years as the first legal counsel to the financial regulator in Guernsey heading up its enforcement activities. She subsequently set up the regulator’s first financial crime division, overseeing the examination of a variety of financial institutions and formulating the regulator’s ongoing supervisory activities across a diverse group of financial sector participants.

Sam continues to maintain ongoing engagement with other regulators on financial crime matters and was approved last year as an independent assessor for MONEYVAL, the European based body of the FATF.

Sam has extensive training experience in the field of financial crime prevention and corporate governance matters. She has most recently been involved in projects related to FenTech businesses, the use of RegTech to mitigate financial crime and list management relating to the screening of customers and third parties. Sam worked with ACAMS Europe as its first subject matter expert as its AML Director and subsequently ran her one advisory business, assisting Crypto, FinTech and AML/CFTvendor technology and outsourcing vendors on various financial crime prevention matters. Sam is recognised by ACAMS and the EIMF as a subject matter expert and has co-authored a number of online certificate courses, facilitated working groups on 4/5AMLD in Europe and assistance in the development of white papers.

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Introducing 2021 Fellow - Bob Kapur

Bob Kapur is an independent AML/ATF consultant, with over 20 years of experience in the industry.

For most of this time, he was the Deputy Chief AML Officer at a Big 5 Canadian bank, and was responsible for all aspects of the global AML, ATF, and Sanctions program, including policy development, risk assessments, investigations, effectiveness testing, training, enhanced due diligence and high risk client management, and board and regulatory reporting.

He was also the bank's representative on numerous industry and government committees and was the private-sector leader of Project Guardian, the public-private initiative with FINTRAC that targets illegal fentanyl trafficking.

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Introducing 2021 Fellow - Peter Warrack

After serving in the British military and then the police in Northern Ireland, (the latter as a senior detective officer) Peter joined the Royal Bank of Canada, (RBC) in 2002 as head of criminal intelligence and then as Head of AML Investigations in the AML Financial Intelligence Unit, (FIU). In 2010 Peter joined the Bank of Montreal, (BMO and as he had done at RBC built the FIU into a best in class example of an FIU based on a risk-based approach. At BMO Peter then held several other positions including Director of Risk Intelligence and Director Fintec, (AML) where his early knowledge about blockchain technology formed the basis of his current position, having left BMO in 2018 to establish his own company and operate as the CCO of Bitfinex.

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Introducing 2021 Fellow - Laura Houlihan

Ms. Houlihan is a passionate AML/ATF, financial crime and regulatory compliance executive professional with over 20 years in the financial industry. Ms. Houlihan has over 15 years of AML/ATF, financial crime and regulatory compliance experience. Laura began her career as a teller at BMO Bank of Montreal and worked her way up throughout her nine year tenure with exposure to in-branch, project management and compliance monitoring roles. In 2005, Laura found her calling when working at AGF Trust as Senior Compliance Specialist where she was able to develop her forte in AML/ATF and financial crime. From 2010 – 2014, Ms. Houlihan held the role of VP, Global Financial Crimes Compliance at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (Canada) where she reported and supported the CAMLO. In 2014, Laura was recruited by and appointed CAMLO at CXI Canada where she was instrumental in developing and implementing a risk-based, OSFI and FINTRAC-compliant AML/ATF compliance program which assisted the former MSB in successfully obtaining approval from OSFI to continue business as a Schedule 1 financial institution, Exchange Bank of Canada. Since then, Laura has held key executive leadership roles in the capacity of Chief Compliance Officer and CAMLO at DCBank and OTT Pay where she acted as subject matter expert on a wide array of complex AML, financial crime and regulatory compliance matters.

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Introducing 2021 Fellow - Jennifer Fiddian-Green

Jennifer is a partner with Grant Thornton LLP's Advisory Services, practicing in the area of Forensic Accounting, Investigations and Litigation Support Services. She leads the firm’s National Forensic and Dispute Resolution practice. Jennifer is a specialist in investigation and forensic accounting (IFA) and is an anti-money laundering (AML) specialist. She has worked with Grant Thornton since joining the firm as a co-operative student while attending the University of Waterloo.

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