Sanctions & Cuba – Still just a US Problem?

Ross joined the ICA from private consultancy following an extensive career within UK Law Enforcement, where he specialised as a Financial Investigator. During this time, Ross led national and international money laundering and asset tracing investigations focussed on disrupting serious and organised criminal networks. He went on to work within UK Counter Terrorism, again focussing on following the money, working with a number of international government and private sector partners to disrupt terrorist activity and prevent attacks from occurring around the globe. As a Course Director and Global Lead for Sanctions, Ross is passionate about sharing his operational expertise and strives to continue to make a difference.

Following operational investigations targeting Organised Crime Networks, Ross moved to New Scotland Yard, joining the National Terrorist Financial Investigation Unit (NTFIU). Working closely with key government and industry partners, he led national and International Terrorist Finance (TF) and financial intelligence operations. In this role, Ross would also assist in War Crimes investigations and in building financial sanctions cases in support of the UK Treasury department.

As part of a UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) capacity building program, Ross was part of a small team of officers that delivered bespoke, tailored, training in Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) to overseas partners in the middle east.

In 2012, Ross was privileged to manage the NTFIU’s Intelligence and Assessment desk during the London Olympics.

Subsequently, Ross was seconded to the UK’s Ministry of Defence to provide specialist CFT and AML Investigative expertise - travelling to Afghanistan, the United States and across Europe. During this secondment, Ross was responsible for developing UK lines of effort for adoption at the ‘Five Eyes’ Threat Finance Working Group. This was comprised of subject matter experts from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United States and the UK.

Ian Bolton is the Founder and CEO of Sanctions SOS, a sanctions consultancy specialising in knowledge, analysis, training, and capacity building. Ian is also the Editor of FISC (Financial Institutions Sanctions Compliance) Journal, from the publishers of WorldECR. FISC provides sanctions knowledge and expertise for the financial sector, customers and advisors. Prior to this Ian worked at HSBC-UK as a Sanctions Senior Manager, leading on regulatory reporting and advisory work for the retail bank. Before joining HSBC-UK, Ian was a British Diplomat for 11 years. As well as serving overseas, Ian focussed extensively on Counter-Proliferation policy, including the enforcement of sanctions and interdictions, and helped write the UK’s keynote sanctions legislation, the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act (2018). Ian worked for King’s College London on strategic export controls and Counter-Proliferation sanctions, is a Visiting Sanctions Research Fellow at King’s, and a sanctions Panel Member and trainer for the International Compliance Association.

Gloria is responsible for the execution of a range of engagements across BDO’s client portfolio including the delivery of numerous Section 166 reviews for the FCA. She is a subject matter expert across the economic crime spectrum, helping fi rms build and enhance appropriate and proportionate systems and controls to combat the risks they face based on their business model. This includes ABC, AML, counter-terrorist financing, sanctions and fraud. Prior to joining BDO, Gloria worked for the Torture Survivors Project in LA, where she represented asylum seekers and refugees who had been victims of torture, trafficking, domestic violence and other human rights abuses. Gloria has also worked at the Serious Fraud Office in London where she investigated cases of complex corruption.

Neil is responsible for the UK Finance sanctions programme and has worked in the financial services sector for over 20 years, concentrating on sanctions compliance since 2009. Prior to joining UK Finance, Neil was the sanctions SME for Internal Audit at Deutsche Bank in London and previously spent over seven years at Lloyds and later HSBC helping both banks review and improve their sanctions compliance.
Neil is a Fellow of both the International Compliance Association and the Society for Advanced Legal Studies and holds an MSc in International Commercial Law and Financial Crime Compliance.