AML CHALLENGES INTERVIEW
Ryan Hill , HSI supervisory special agent
ACAMS Today : Could you tell me about your role and what you do on a daily basis ?
Ryan Hill : My group is tasked with looking at non-traditional money laundering investigations — so everything outside of narcotics money laundering . Currently , some of the investigations we are working on are Ponzi schemes , securities fraud , manipulations of securities and commodities . We have also targeted the proceeds of contraband , for example , cigarette contraband trafficking . This is an offense that is not typically prosecuted because it is difficult to get the requirements for it , but we have found that we can do undercover operations where we can get information from the organized network that is operating these rings of contraband cigarettes . For example , these organizations go to low-tax jurisdictions , like Virginia , to buy as many cigarettes as they can at a low cost . They then sell the cigarettes at a higher price in the Black Market , which allows for huge profits even though they employ couriers and runners to travel on the interstate . We have discovered that this type of contraband trafficking has been tied to Hawalas because criminals prefer to use illicit money laundering networks because they operate without any oversight . However , not all Hawalas are used for illicit money . Since illicit money investigations falls under our purview , a lot of our investigations have begun with illicit money movement . This is why many of our investigations have begun with a contraband cigarette trafficking investigation . For example , imagine that a state trooper in West Virginia has pulled over a courier , which then leads to a larger network dealing in K2 synthetic cannabinoid distribution . The K2 is so prolific it has melded into the contraband cigarette trafficking . We have noticed in our undercover investigations that the criminals do not want us to purchase K2 synthetic cannabinoid as much as they want us to sell them contraband cigarettes , so they can trade between contraband cigarettes from low-tax juris-
Ryan Hill , HSI EDTF supervisory special agent
dictions for K2 . We are seeing an overlap between K2 and the contraband cigarettes and even though contraband cigarettes do not appear as a public safety , K2 is and the melding of the two is affecting the public safety .
AT : Would you say that it is related to synthetic opioids ? RH : It has been related to fentanyl and synthetic opioids .
AT : Could you expand on your work with commodities ?
RH : We work closely with the Securities Exchange Commission ( SEC ) and we have recently started working closely with the U . S . Commodity Futures Trading Commission ( CFTC ). We worked on a case involving a woman that was a Harvard graduate and she played up her Harvard degree as a selling point to come across as a prolific trader . She even tried to say that she had an evolved trading rationale that would guarantee double-digit returns . She would take victims ’ money and prepare false investor statements and this was to the tune of $ 23 million . The SEC was the original provider , but the CFTC was the organization that we worked with to identify her and gather the evidence to obtain her conviction and we were successful .
AT : What has been your favorite case ?
RH : There was a Bangladesh organization made up of 15 to 20 individuals that had a very sophisticated way of conducting check fraud . They would create these high quality counterfeit checks and had access to great false IDs . They would then open bank accounts with banks and let them remain dormant for a six-month period . Because of the dormancy , the banks would relax their controls on these accounts . Then on a Friday , they would deposit a $ 15,000 check and would withdraw money from ATMs up to the ATM limits . They realized
42 ACAMS TODAY | SEPTEMBER – NOVEMBER 2017 | ACAMS . ORG | ACAMSTODAY . ORG