Sanctions Space

In this episode, Colin McDonald discusses his ongoing efforts to build the U.S. Department of Justice's newly created fraud division, pioneering a data-driven approach that targets the biggest threats, maximizes enforcement resources, and intersects with sanctions priorities. He explores the impact of AI-enabled fraud, the role of interagency cooperation in protecting taxpayer dollars and restoring public trust in U.S. government programs, and the importance of global private-public partnerships.  Colin M. McDonald was sworn in as the first Assistant Attorney General for the National Fraud Enforcement Division on April 1, 2026. Mr. McDonald has served in multiple roles within the Department of Justice since 2014, including as an Associate Deputy Attorney General, an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of California, and a Special Attorney to the Attorney General in the District of Hawaii.

Justine sits down with Howard Fields to discuss the complexities of navigating risk across jurisdictions with differing sanctions, regulatory expectations, and risk profiles. Fields explores the importance of governance, the challenges of developing policies across global operations, and the evolving landscape of cross-border information sharing. He also reflects how national security priorities have reshaped risk management over the past decade and why technology will help break down organizational silos and amplify risk signals.  Howard Fields is Executive Vice President, Risk & Compliance Enterprise Solutions and Commercialization at Mastercard. He has extensive experience in building and transforming global compliance, ethics, and risk management programs.

At the ACAMS Assembly Vegas, Justine sits down with Jim Lee, former chief at IRS-CI, to discuss how he is continuing his mission of fighting financial crime and following the money in an increasingly digital ecosystem. Lee discusses how the threat environment has evolved over his career, highlighting the speed and convenience of moving value, how geopolitics is influencing the adoption of digital assets, and a dynamic regulatory environment. Jim Lee is former IRS-CI chief, having overseen a worldwide staff of approximately 3,000 employees, including 2,100 special agents in 21 fields offices and 11 foreign countries. Lee is now Global Head of Capacity Building with Chainalysis, a leading blockchain intelligence firm.

Justine sits down with Nathalie von Taaffe, a leading expert in sanctions and financial crime compliance, to explore how geopolitics — and the global race for dominance — are reshaping the compliance landscape. They discuss shifting enforcement priorities, sanctions enforcement and anti-blocking legislation, and the unintended consequences of de-risking, including financial exclusion and illicit activity. They also examine efforts to rebuild Syria’s financial system and why adaptive compliance Is more critical than ever.

Justine Walker sits down with Dawson Law, a senior advisor on geopolitical risk and compliance. Their conversation explores potential scenarios for Iran, including protracted conflict, partial sanctions relief, and regime collapse — highlighting how economic measures and geopolitical negotiations could shape different outcomes. They also consider broader global developments, from shifting Gulf investment patterns to U.S. policy on Cuba, China, and export controls. Throughout, the episode underscores growing sanctions divergence between the U.S. and its allies, and the need for companies to prepare for geopolitical and regulatory uncertainty. Dawson Law previously served for over a decade as a U.S. diplomat at the US Department of State where he worked on the Iran Desk and was posted at the US Embassies in Sudan, Poland, Vietnam and Australia. He later worked as a senior sanctions policy advisor at the U.S. Department of the Treasury in the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and served as the first U.S. Treasury Representative to the United Kingdom, supporting transatlantic coordination on economic statecraft including Iran sanctions and illicit finance.

In this episode, Justine Walker sits down with Brad Brooks-Rubin, a leading expert in sanctions, illicit finance, and corruption to examine why gold — one of the world's oldest stores of value — has become a blind spot in modern sanctions and financial crime frameworks. Their conversation explores gold's central role in illicit finance, corruption, and the shortcomings of existing due-diligence and certification programs. Against a backdrop of intensifying geopolitical competition and evolving payment systems, they unpack what effective accountability, intelligence sharing, and sanctions strategy could look like when confronting high‑risk commodities like gold. Brad Brooks-Rubin focuses on the intersection of different types of risks – sanctions, corruption, money laundering, political, and human rights. Most recently, Brad was a Senior Advisor in the Office of Sanctions Coordination at the U.S. Department of State, where he was responsible for sanctions policy coordination related to sub-Saharan Africa, Burma, the West Bank, and natural resources, principally diamonds, gold, and timber.

At the ACAMS Assembly Hollywood, Justine Walker sits down with Rachel Alpert, a leading authority on national security, sanctions, human rights, and global strategy, to unpack how geopolitics and sanctions are increasingly intertwined. Their conversation explores how sanctions are shaping global diplomacy—including their role in negotiations with Iran—against a backdrop of heightened geopolitical volatility. Together, they examine how developments in Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Syria, and Russia are influencing sanctions risk, enforcement priorities, and regulatory expectations worldwide, and what this evolving landscape means for organizations navigating compliance today.

At the ACAMS Hollywood Assembly, Justine sat down with Jonathan Burke, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing. Their discussion explores the evolving terrorist financing risk landscape, the importance of aligning regulation with critical threats and institutional vulnerabilities, and how technology is reshaping fraud at an unprecedented scale and speed. Jonathan Burke leads the U.S. Department of Treasury's counter terrorist financing and anti-money laundering efforts. His career spans more than 20 years across foreign policy, national security, and financial services.

At the ACAMS Las Vegas Assembly, Justine sat down with Oksana Ihnatenko, RUSI, and ACAMS Rising Professional of the Year. Their discussion includes Oksana’s research and work to build public-private partnerships in Ukraine, how Ukrainians view current sanctions policy, and how Ukraine’s reconstruction can be funded. Oksana Ihnatenko is a Researcher for the Supervising and Monitoring Ukraine’s Reconstruction Funds (SMURF) project at the Centre for Finance and Security at RUSI, based in Kyiv. Her research focuses on Ukraine's adherence to FATF standards, fighting financial crime, anti-money laundering efforts, and issues surrounding reconstruction. You can read more here. https://www.rusi.org/people/ihnatenko

At the ACAMS Las Vegas Assembly, Justine sat down with Carole House, Senior Distinguished Fellow, ACAMS. Their discussion includes the AFC implications of generative artificial intelligence, including increasing sophistication of deepfakes and the resulting ‘authenticity crisis’, how we can build resilience to the threat, and trends in cyber-enabled sanctions evasion. Carole House recently joined ACAMS as a Senior Distinguished Fellow. Among Carole’s many prominent and senior roles, she previously served as the White House National Security Council (NSC) special advisor for cybersecurity and critical infrastructure policy.