European Anti-Financial Crime Summit

Federica is a Partner at Interpath Advisory, where she co-leads a team of regulatory experts who assess and investigate regulatory and financial crime concerns on behalf of regulators and enforcement agencies globally.

Federica has led and been involved in numerous of the recent large-scale investigations (Swedbank, Latvian/ABLV flows, organised crime) on behalf of regulators in Europe and the US, including a dual-track (criminal and regulatory) investigation into a major universal bank that revealed the facilitation of significant terror-related activity.

Federica translates her direct, hands-on, experience of investigating complex financial crime schemes (encompassing illicit use of shell companies/complex ownership structures, cryptocurrencies, hacking incidents, ransomware scams, identity theft schemes and bribery and corruption) involving a wide range of jurisdictions (including Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Malta, Cyprus, UK, US, Sweden, Italy, Libya, Hong Kong, the BVI, Panama, Bermuda and Curacao) into practical advice for supervisors and regulated firms and advises regulators and law enforcement agencies as to how to build and improve (intra-)jurisdictional infrastructure to prevent an investigate financial crime .

Federica has conducted investigations and served as a strategic advisor to the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) and Malta Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) on the topic of financial crime and served, on an interim basis, as Head of the MFSA’s Financial Crime Unit. She also advises the regulators and other government entities in preparation for upcoming FATF assessments.

Amongst Federica’s clients are the EMEA regulators (including the UK FCA, MFSA, FIAU, CySEC, CBUAE, BaFIN, Bermuda Monetary Authority, Guardia di Finanza and Danish FSA), governments (e.g., UK, Malta, UAE, Cyprus, Lithuania and Cayman Islands) and a wide range of financial institutions (including gambling and cryptoassets businesses).

She is a Board Director of Malta’s ACAMS Chapter and AML Intelligence and a senior adviser to the EU AML/CFT Global Facility on the topics of beneficial ownership and virtual assets.

In her early career, Federica set up and co-led an independent firm consulting financial services and government agencies in Europe on quantitative risk management and general compliance.

Later, Federica held senior compliance and control roles (including Head of Compliance and MLRO) in industry (including at Credit Suisse, RBS and ICICI Bank, all in the UK), setting up and leading control and compliance units. She also led the regulatory affairs team that negotiated (with, inter alia, the FCA, PRA, HMT and European Commission) the terms of the Banking Licence Application for Williams & Glyn as part of the RBS rescue package deal with the UK government.

Federica is a frequent speaker and writer on various financial crime topics, the predicate offences that drive it, the small (but impactful) shortfalls that cause illicit flows to pass through the financial system, the consequences of financial crime and to provide pragmatic advice as to how to remediate them.

Dr. Marcus Pleyer of Germany assumed the position of President of the FATF on 1 July 2020. He succeeded Xiangmin Liu of the People's Republic of China.

Dr. Marcus Pleyer serves as Deputy Director General in Germany’s Federal Ministry of Finance with responsibilities for policy development and international engagement pertaining International Financial Markets (including FSB, G7, G20 matters), Anti- Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (AML/CFT), Financial Sanctions Policy, Digital Finance including Payment Services and Cyber Security and national and international development banks. As representative of the Federal Republic, he is currently a member of the board of governors of the Development Bank for Agribusiness and of the Foundation for Financing the Disposal of Nuclear Waste. He is regularly invited as an expert on AML/CFT and took part in a number of international AML/CFT-missions. Before he assumed the position of President on 1 July 2020, he served as Vice-President of the FATF (July 2019–June 2020), and as the Head of the German delegation (2016–July 2019). Dr. Pleyer has also been serving in the Steering Committee of that same organisation since 2016.

Prior to his current position, Dr. Pleyer headed the Division for International Financial Markets from 2014 to 2015. From 2011 to 2014, he served as Head of Cabinet of Federal Finance Minister Schaeuble. From 2006 to 2011, he worked in the Federal Chancellery as senior adviser for Economic Law, International Financial Markets, Eurozone and G8/G20-Affairs and was part of a special team of Chancellor Merkel for the stabilization of the financial sector in 2009. Prior to that, he held positions as adviser in the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) after he had worked as a researcher in the field of public and capital markets law at the University of Dresden and as lecturer in criminal law at the University of Heidelberg.

With support of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation, Marcus studied law at the National University of Singapore and the University of Heidelberg from which he graduated in law in 1995 before he qualified for the position of a judge in 1997. He holds a Master of Laws degree from the University of Edinburgh, a Master of Business Administration from the University of Wales and a Ph.D. from the University of Dresden. He has also passed the admission exam as a stockbroker.

Karyn Kenny serves as an Attorney Advisor for the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section, International Unit. From 2013 to 2021, she served as Resident Legal Advisor for three U.S. embassies, focusing on combating emerging financial crime and counterterrorism matters.

Ms. Kenny is the recipient of the U.S. Department of State’s Meritorious Honor Award for creating the U.S./Bangladesh Bilateral Banking Sector Dialogue and in2020, designed and launched the first U.S. DOJPublic/Private FinTech Sector Partnership Dialogue.

She has served as a U.S. Supreme Court Fellow, a Senior Justice Sector consultant for the World Bank and was named a U.S. Fulbright Scholar, teaching criminal and constitutional law courses in Lithuania. From 2000 to 2007, she served as an Assistant United States Attorney, District of Nevada, specializing in prosecuting financial and fraud cases and was an adjunct instructor for the University of Nevada where she received an award for her outstanding teaching. From 1995 to 2000, Ms. Kenny prosecuted violent crimes as an Assistant District Attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

She has published articles in the DOJ’s Journal of Federal Law and Practice, The World Bank Legal Review and lectures globally on financial crime, the Metaverse, NFTs, FinTech and international law issues. She has taught at the University of Lucerne, Switzerland, the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA), the DEA Academy and designed and taught the first course on TheFinTech Ecosystem for U.S. federal prosecutors and law enforcement agents at the DOJ’s National Advocacy Center. Ms. Kenny was a featured guest on the compliance focused Risky Women Radio podcast, lectured at the World Bank and the Brookings Institution and served as a keynote speaker for Thomson Reuters.

She holds a B.A. (summa cum laude), M.A., and J.D. degrees and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa

Pat who is originally from Drimoleague, West Cork, joined An Garda Síochána in 1986 and has served mainly in the Dublin Region but also worked in the South Eastern and Eastern Garda Regions. Pat has worked in Community Policing, Drugs, Prostitution Investigations, Serious Crime Investigations, Fraud and Financial Investigations, Financial Intelligence and Cybercrime. He has held the position of Detective in all ranks and has been at the forefront of the investigation of serious crime for many years. Pat is a Senior Investigating Officer (S.I.O.) and holds a B.Sc in Management Law from Trinity College Dublin.

In 2015, Pat took up his current position as Head of the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau. The Garda National Economic Crime Bureau is involved in many high profile investigations and is supported by Gardaí throughout the country trained in Fraud Investigation. Pat and his team have developed a Post Graduate Certificate in Fraud and E-Crime Investigation in association with University College Dublin. Pat was also the lead representative from An Garda Síochána in the 2017 Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Review of Ireland. Pat sees education and crime prevention as being the most beneficial ways of reducing fraud into the future.

Ilze Znotiņa is the former Director of FIU Latvia. Prior to joining FIU Latvia she has had a career as a sworn attorney-at-law specializing in dispute resolution. Her main areas of expertise included regulatory issues, insolvency, anti-bribery and anti-money laundering, fraud and white-collar crime.

A former Partner of law firm Deloitte Legal, Ms. Znotina has represented a wide range of local and international clients in courts as well as performed an anti-fraud reviews at many international and local companies where she led investigation of corruption, false accounting, fraud, theft, asset recovery, tax evasion, money laundering and obstruction of justice cases.

Her recent activities before the appointment related to leading the preparation of Latvian National AML/CFT Risk assessment and several sectoral assessments.

Ms. Znotina has submitted her doctoral thesis in the Faculty of Law, University of Latvia. She holds a Master degree in International and European Law from Riga Graduate School of Law and a Bachelor degree in Law from the University of Latvia. She is an author of a number of publications related to law, fraud and corruption as well as a frequent speaker on these topics.

Danny McCoy is CEO at Ibec, the group that represents Irish business domestically and internationally.

Since becoming CEO in 2009, he has led a substantial transformation of Ibec increasing turnover to €31 million, leading a professional services staff of 240 in 7 locations and 38 sub-brands. Prior to joining Ibec, he served as a senior economist at both the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and the Central Bank of Ireland.

He has held lecturing posts at Dublin City University, University College London, University of Oxford and Trinity College Dublin and has been visiting lecturer at the IMD Business School in Switzerland and Harvard University in the US. He has been a consultant for the European Commission and the OECD.

He currently serves as President of the Statistical & Social Inquiry Society of Ireland and Honorary Fellow of the Academy of Engineers.

He is a member of the Export Trade Council, the BusinessEurope Executive Committee, and the OECD-BIAC working group on Corporate Taxation. Danny correctly identified the turnaround in the Irish economy prior to the EU Troika programme and initiated significant media campaigns around the driving the recovery domestically and internationally.

Over recent years, he has made significant speeches to the United Nations ILO plenary in Geneva; to the European Business Summit in Brussels; spoken at conferences in the New York and London Stock Exchanges, at the IMF in Washington DC, the World Trade Organisation in Geneva; Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce; and the OECD Economic Forum in Paris. He regularly presents to the Global Boards of an international multinational organisation.

He is a regular contributor in the print and broadcast media and has written columns for the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and the Irish Times among other international newspapers.

The Irish Times recently described Danny as one of the ‘50 people who run Ireland’.

Ibec represents Irish business; home grown, multinational, big and small, spanning every sector of the economy.

The organisation and its sector associations, work with government and policymakers nationally and internationally, to shape business conditions and drive economic growth.

It also provides a wide range of professional services direct to members.

Stephen is the Publisher at AML Intelligence based between our Brussels and Dublin offices. Stephen is former Group Editor-in-Chief at INM, Ireland’s largest media group, where he ran the newspaper and online operations.

A member of the Supervisory Board of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), he has also served on the board of the World Editors Forum. Stephen is Principal at KOBN, a specialist European leadership advisory, with an emphasis on cybersecurity and climate change.