In this segment of AML Now, John J. Byrne, ACAMS executive vice president, discusses AML issues covered during the recent 10th Puerto Rican Symposium of Anti-Money Laundering with Alan Abel, a representative of the AICPA and long-time money laundering prevention veteran.

Alan is Crowe Horwath’s and Horwath International’s Global Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Practice Leader, and is responsible for Quality Assurance on Crowe Horwath Financial Crime engagements. Alan has worked with the Boards and Senior Management of more than one hundred global and regional banks to help them develop and strengthen their governance, business processes, controls and risk assessment and risk management connected with money laundering, fraud, corruption, related financial crime, and sanctions. He has 25 years of experience managing large, complex domestic and international projects and financial management operations. Alan has developed training programs and materials and has personally trained more than 1000 professional staff for client projects and management operations.

Alan has worked with the governments Puerto Rico and thirty-five countries and other jurisdictions to evaluate and assist their money laundering detection and deterrence efforts, including the first money laundering vulnerability assessment of the Latin American Rim Region and the Caribbean Region for the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) including the governments of Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Panamá, Venezuela, the British Commonwealth jurisdictions, the UK Caribbean Dependent Territories, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands jurisdictions. This included close cooperation with the police, public prosecutors, and the superintendence of finance, justice, controllers, national security, and the central banks. Alan works closely with the Financial Crimes Enforcement (FinCEN) and has assisted the World Bank with its AML strategy.