- Chief Compliance Officer and VP of Legal Affairs, Arrow Electronics
By 
Martin Woods2020-09-30T18:20:00
It’s important we understand with the “FinCEN Files” that the enemy is not a journalist, a regulator, or a banker. The enemy is the money launderer, and this is where we need to focus our thinking and resources, writes Martin Woods.
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Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, a former senior advisor at FinCEN who provided 2,100 SARs to BuzzFeed News that would form the basis of 2020’s “FinCEN Files” investigation, was sentenced to six months in prison.
Many compliance professionals in the financial industry believe last year’s leak of 2,100 suspicious activity reports from FinCEN had an overall positive impact on global efforts to fight financial crime, according to an ACAMS survey.
In the wake of 2020’s FinCEN Files leaks, the U.S. Treasury this year will undertake a thorough reevaluation of the country’s AML program under the Bank Secrecy Act.
Top-of-mind issues addressed at Compliance Week’s Third-Party Risk Management & Oversight Summit, held June 3-4 in Atlanta, included safe deployment of artificial intelligence, assessing vendor viability and sustainability, understanding the role of procurement in risk ranking, the intersection (or lack thereof) between data privacy and cybersecurity, and many others.
Anne Morriss, co-author of “Move Fast and Fix Things,” advises compliance officers to tap into curiosity, communicativeness, and comfort with discomfort to build organizational trust, fast.
Regulators and government agencies often speak to the value of empowered corporate compliance programs to advancing their mission. Why not practice what they preach by empowering compliance among their own ranks?
