Opinions My Own: Risk, FinTech and the Law

The very idea that any industrialized nation or multi-national company can live without the United States or China as a key economic partner or commercial driver is a false narrative. This includes the Unites States with China, vice versa and their own multi-nationals. The true narrative, and the one we delve into, is how such nation and companies operate more securely with and within China – protecting their own people, goods, inventions and processes, beginning with their data.Enter Sherman Deng, Cybersecurity and Privacy Partner at Fangda Partners, one of China’s elite “Red Circle” law firms. In this episode, Sherman and Paul discuss Sherman's transition back to Shanghai after studying in the United States and working as Senior Counsel for Marriott International. They analyze the commonly adopted strategy of “hiving off” one China operations, and is this the only option?, working within China’s Great Firewall, considerations when working with sensitive data, and practices to demonstrate credible information security – particularly when a breach occurs and a senior executive is “invited to a cup of tea” by China authorities.Please follow us here, Apple and YouTube. Thank you for listening.

Lili Infante spent 11 years as a Special Agent in the DEA. She specialized in digital assets....cryptocurrencies, honing her craft in asset recovery. Lili finds digital wallets, pass phrases and private keys in petabytes of data. Now in private practice with CAT Labs, Lili and her team have raised nearly $10 million, which is helping them help the federal government recover millions in seized crypto assets. She's not stopping there as the team now looks to offer digital asset recovery technology to the private sector - law firms, forensic agencies and citizens at large who may have that critical need to find....or recover...the key to their crypto stockpiles.This is her story - from Russia, to the DEA where she became the go-to agent for crypto investigations to the private sector and CAT Labs. Lili has hard takes on the criminal use of crypto, the inextricable link of the technology with cyber security and our own national security interests and how this moment in time brings her life's work, finally, to the forefront of commerce and national security.

Emotional. Intelligent. Artificial. In Philip K. Dick's 1968 science fiction novella, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, empathy tests separate man from droid in 2021. But the tests have become easier to pass, androids demonstrating characteristics indistinguishable from humans. Today, in real life, boys, girls and emotionally at risk adults are developing relationships with artificially intelligent characters online and in person. Serious risks abound. This episode, my interview with Dr. Raffaele Ciriello, Senior Lecturer in Business Information Systems at the University of Sydney, is dedicated to the memory of Sewell Setzer III. Sewell was 14 when he took his life in early 2024 after developing a relationship with an emotionally intelligent chatbot. His story is a tragic one. Fiction has become reality. Here's what we can do about it. About Our Guest, Dr. Raffaele F. Ciriello: As a tenured Senior Lecturer in Business Information Systems at The University of Sydney Business School, Dr. Ciriello specialize in compassionate digital innovation, focusing on decentralized governance and ethical/societal implications of emerging digital technologies (blockchain, web3, AI, social media). Dr. Ciriello is deeply committed to mentorship, having guided dozens of research students across several countries and actively contributed to the academic community as a reviewer and editor, recognized with teaching awards, Best AE Awards and as a Distinguished Member of the Association for Information Systems. Dr. Ciriello's research appears regularly in leading journals and conferences. He lives in Sydney with his wonderful wife and two mad scientists.

"Pig, I will SLIT your throat. I will CONSUME you, tail to snout." The horrors of PIG BUTCHERING have yet to be fully appreciated. If they were, we’d be MOBILIZING. Like we did as a Nation after the Attack on Pearl Harbor. After 9/11. Like we did as a collective society, globally, during Covid. We’d be adopting and spreading technology. Like we did with Facebook. Like we are with Artificial Intelligence. ERIN WEST is done talking about the problem, the human trafficking, the slave labor camps, the torture, the financial terrorism and the mental anguish that is Pig Butchering. "We are at crisis level," she testified on Capitol Hill this September. If you - Social Media, Telecommunications and Financial Institutions - are not part of the SOLUTION, you are the problem. Join us as we dive into a solutions-focused episode of Opinions My Own: Risk, FinTech & the Law. They call us pigs, and they want to butcher us. For more information visit www.OperationShamrock.org and www.ChainAbuse.com. Thank you for listening. - Paul

We’re big Prince fans here at Opinions My Own, and in honor of his best album turning 30, we sought out Don Palmieri, master gemologist, world renowned appraiser and decorated Vietnam veteran. As we’ve said, the diamonds and jewels industry needs some much needed light shined on (or is it through?) it - conflict diamonds, child labor, fraud, AML, corruption. In this, the enlightened age of ESG, our interview with Don, a 50 year veteran in the field, does just that.  Please enjoy, share and like. Find us on YouTube, streaming on Spotify, iTunes and @Twitter. And, keep sending us those topics! Oh, and here’s Prince & the NPG’s own Diamond & Pearls. Thanks for listening. Zila & Paul Guest: Don Palmieri, Diamonds & Jewels Ninja Time: 57 minutes

That’s Amanda Wick on America’s early frontier, the real Wild West. But in crypto, where the likes of tech bros haven’t yet fully dominated the field, Wick sees hope. But she’s got some hard scrabble advice… The first of our “Women Our Own” series, Amanda offers not-to-be missed insights on women in law and technology, especially cryptocurrency. Former federal prosecutor, current practitioner of Krav Maga and fierce advocate for women in [insert ANY industry here], Amanda isn’t mincing words: “What is your solution to fix things?” Please enjoy this spotlight episode on Women in AML, FinTech & the Law. Find us on YouTube, streaming on Spotify, iTunes and @Twitter. Like, share and, if interested in a topic, let us know. Thanks for listening. Zila & Paul Guest: Amanda Wick, recent Chief of Legal Affairs of Chainalysis Inc., former DOJ Attorney, Senior Policy Advisor at FinCEN Time: 19 minutes

Guest: Amanda Wick, Chief of Legal Affairs of Chainalysis Inc., former DOJ Attorney, Senior Policy Advisor at FinCEN, Overview: "I personally think that bitcoin is worthless," Jamie Dimon, CEO, JPMorgan Chase & Co. Monday, October 11, 2021 at the Institute of International Finance. “A Ponzi scheme from the jump.” That’s what cryptocurrencies are...right? In this episode, Zila and Paul speak with Amanda Wick, Chief of Legal Affairs at Chainalysis Inc. about her career in law and migration to blockchain and crypto. Amanda helps bust some common myths while offering candid opinions about the state of the public sector’s understanding of this revolutionary technology. Time: 42 minutes

Guest: John Moscow, Deputy Chief, Investigations Division, New York County District Attorney’s Office (retired) Overview: John Moscow, the legendary Manhattan Assistant District Attorney, described the decades-defunct-but-still-notorious Bank of Credit and Commercial International to me this way: “It was a full service bank that would do anything its customers wanted.” (Emphasis mine.) Money laundering. Tax evasion. Drug trafficking. Terrorist financing. Moscow’s and, more precisely, D.A. Robert M. Morgenthau’s prosecution of BCCI reverberated globally as the bank pled guilty and was then liquidated in 1991. Vanity Fair magazine wrote a feature, How They Broke the Bank, the following spring that still holds up as an enthralling account of D.A.N.Y.’s dismantling of one of the then-largest banks in the world. Aside from lawmakers, regulators and educators, the world of pop culture noticed. The Infiltrator, former U.S. Customs’ Agent Robert Mazur’s book on the early role he played, became a movie by the same name in 2015. Bryan Cranston played the lead. American Made came out two years later detailing the improbable tale of former TWA pilot Barry Seal’s drug smuggling for the Medellin Cartel, side work for the CIA and turning informant for the DEA. In this episode, Zila and Paul discuss BCCI before Paul and John revisit the investigation, the oddity of the media attention that followed, how AML efforts have fared since then and, of course, “that photo”. Time: 35 minutes

Guests: Joe Friscia, Chief Revenue Officer, Tookitaki; former President, Nice Actimize Abishek Chatterjee, Founder & CEO, Tookitaki Overview: The bane of transactional surveillance - a regulatory requirement for identifying potentially suspicious, potentially criminal financial transactions - is the “false positive”. Basically, thousands of alerts are triggered, but only a small percentage require actual investigation. “What a waste!” would be the understatement of the year. The best and brightest companies, including IBM and its Watson Artificial Intelligence tools, understand that solving this problem, which affects all banks, translates not just into reducing costs (and getting a devoted clientele) but identifying and preventing criminal activity more effectively...the whole point of these efforts! In this episode, Zila and Paul speak with Joe and Abishek from Tookitaki and dig a little deeper into machine learning (a subset of AI) and how it might assist existing technologies and their banks finally harpoon Moby Dick. Time: 43 minutes

Guests: Alon Kaufman, CEO & Co-Founder, Duality Technologies; former Director of Data Science & Innovation, RSA; Jim Richards, Founder & Principal, RegTech Consulting Overview: It took 9/11 to bring new life to the 1973 Bank Secrecy Act. Since then, financial services firms worldwide have both spent and been fined billions of dollars to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and fraud. In this episode, Paul speaks with Alon Kaufman and Jim Richards about the state of AML, and is it a failed policy experiment as a recent Economist article proffered? One path forward is tied to players sharing and acting on information more boldly with the help of technology. Time: 35 minutes

Zila and Paul jump right in and present their vision for "Opinions My Own," their podcast on anti-money laundering, technology & the law. (Paul, you owe Zila lunch for getting the BSA date wrong! ...or just watch "Power" to settle all debts.) Time: 7:30 minutes

For the entire episode on emotionally intelligent AI characters and the dangers they pose, please go to OPINIONS MY OWN: Risk, FinTech & the Law, on: YouTube, Spotify or Apple. Thank you for listening.

Eugene Kowel and I met September 4, 2001, at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. Since we left, I’ve been in the private sector working in law, risk, financial crimes compliance and cybersecurity. Gene has been with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Join me as I speak with Gene about what led him from DANY to the FBI, including his time in Afghanistan and Iraq, why the FBI leans internationally to protect us domestically, his work on both our coasts in violent, drug and white collar crimes and now, celebrating his fourth year next month as Special Agent in Charge of the Omaha Field Office, and his remits of Nebraska and Iowa. This episode is special to me for a variety of reasons. First, it’s not just with a friend and someone I admire deeply, but with active law enforcement, a first for our podcast. Second, as the podcast has meant to do, we’ve covered another area - Heartland, U.S.A. - and what local, state and federal law enforcement are doing to protect our food, livestock and biofuels, including from a cyber arena and in close collaboration with the private sector and farming communities. Third, Gene and I recorded this last week, the 23rd anniversary of 9/11, which back then was just our second week of work at DANY. #neverforget #ifyouseesomethingsaysomething Thank you for listening. - Paul

WARNING. Human trafficking, illegal guns & drugs, child pornography, stolen cryptocurrency, credit cards.... this is the marketplace. Insulin, need any? Sex dolls, want some? This is the place, and there are 4 and 5-star reviews for those selling. Crime-as-a-Service? This is where bitcoin mixers and contract killers mingle with expert cartels and lone wolves with novice computer skills in an un-indexed, haphazardly policed bizarre bazaar. Welcome to the Dark Web. Don't have the stomach? Head to Mos Eisley's Cantina. It's tamer. Much. This shit's real. In my hour long conversation with cybersecurity expert and professor Will Spettmann, we don't just discuss cybersecurity and cyber crimes, we stroll the streets of the seedy and lawless place everyone's heard about but few have seen. Here's what you need to know about what's going on right as we live and breathe and how to protect yourself. WARNING. CERTAIN SUBJECT MATERIAL IS UPSETTING.

Scene One: Industry Conference <The moderator leans in.> Moderator: "What keeps you up at night?" CEO: Cybersecurity. Scene Two: Company conference room CISO: Well done, everyone. Great tabletop exercise. I discuss with the former CISO of the Israel Defense Forces, Gad Abadi, the root cause of Scenario One, so many CEOs' sleepless nights, and the glaring blind spot with Scenario Two, which overemphasizes the CISO, CIO and the technical SMEs but largely ignores the other C-Suite players and their teams critical to timely recovery, firm reputation and client servicing. Please enjoy, share and like. Find us also on YouTube. Thanks for listening. Paul Caulfield Guest: Gad Abadi, Lieutenant Colonel, former CISO, Israel Defense Forces Time: 48 minutes

When do you need a lawyer? As a company engaged in blockchain, crypto or other innovative areas there are many instances when you might need to call a lawyer for advice on how to proceed in these uncharted waters. Throughout the previous episodes we have hinted at hiring lawyers and in this episode we speak to one of the lawyers you might need to hire - Lilya Tessler.  Lilya is a partner and head of Sidley Austin’s FinTech and Blockchain group. If you need advice on regulations and the legal implications of business decisions in the FinTech/Blockchain space she is who you should call. We have a conversation in this episode about her approach to the law, her clients and what pressing legal questions start-ups have.

NO ONE IS WALKING THE #AML BEAT IN VIDEO GAMES, and the bad guys know it. Elsewhere...in cryptocurrencyland, the media, law enforcement, Capitol HIll, OK...everyone is talking about the newest, shiny ball. Regulation and enforcement will soon kick into overdrive as mainstream market adoption of crypto assets explodes. Just check out the Twitter feeds of Michael Saylor (MicroStrategy) and Gary Gensler (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair). Don’t even get us started about Bloomberg LP (news not the man).  Not so in Decentraland, Fortnite, or Counter Strike: Global Offensive, or on Twitch or Steam where millions are being laundered and an untold number, defrauded. Welcome to the #TradeableEconomy, and be they skins, emotions (emotes), virtual weapons, in-game currencies or keys, this lesser known, secondary market has been running unchecked for more than a decade. These digital assets are flying under the radar, and we better wake up.     In this episode, "Ready Player NONE: This is Not a Game", Jean-Loup Richet, Associate Professor, IAE Paris - Sorbonne Business School and Advisory Member to the European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) at Europol and Benjamin (Benji) Preminger, cyber threat intelligence special and product manager at Cybersixgill discuss the money laundering techniques and recent crimes that should make law enforcement and Capitol Hill sit up, pay attention and devote more of their energy to this active and effective crime channel. Thanks for listening.  Zila Acosta-Grimes & Paul Caulfield Time:  46 minutes