transform finance east coast

Carol Van Cleef is a Washington DC lawyer and founder and CEO of Luminous Group, LLC, a consulting firm providing strategic and regulatory compliance advisory services involving cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies. She serves on the board of directors of BTCS, a public company that focuses on Blockchain infrastructure and staking and on the board of Polymath Research Inc., that is building security token technology for capital raising and investment management on the Polymesh blockchain. Carol also serves on the board or as an advisor to several other ventures including Gatenox, a crypto and web3 solution for combined customer onboarding, KYC and blockchain analytics and Bryllyant, a fintech development company.

Ms. Van Cleef, a certified anti-money laundering specialist (CAMS), founded Comptegrity which is launching a center for risk management focused on AML/CTF and sanctions compliance awareness training for virtual currency, blockchain-related and other businesses.

Ms. Van Cleef, a past president of WHF, now co-chairs the WHF Digital Assets and Blockchain Forum. She is a founding member of the Association of Women in Crypto and a member of the board of directors of the Travel Rule Information Sharing Alliance. She also created and chairs the annual Crypto Summit at the Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crimes. She is a frequent speaker on cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology, virtual currencies, payment systems, and related legal and compliance issues. She was honored to be named to Forbes’ inaugural 50 over 50 (Investment).

Elizabeth (“Liz”) Slim, provides compliance consulting services specializing in anti-money laundering and financial crimes for financial service companies.  Liz is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (“CAMS”) for 17 years with over 35 years specializing in bank operations, compliance, risk management and regulatory training at various community to mid-size financial institutions.  For the past 15 years, Slim is an experienced Bank Secrecy (“BSA”) and Anti-Money Laundering (“AML”) Officer managing a team of analysts that conduct fraud and money laundering investigations.  She managed and had oversight responsibilities of the financial institution’s BSA and Sanctions program, BSA/OFAC risk assessments, transaction monitoring, government reporting, and training.  

In 2009, Slim founded and currently serves as the chairperson of the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (“ACAMS”) Southern California Chapter.  She also participates in the ACAMS Education Task Force and CAMS Advanced Audit Certification programs.  She was the ACAMS recipient of the 2013 Al Gillum Volunteer of the Year Award.  Elizabeth has been an invited guest speaker at several national conferences on various topics related to anti-money laundering and financial fraud. 

Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) Kachhia-Patel currently overseas the FBI New York Office’s Cyber program which encompasses approximately 100 personnel working both nation state and criminal intrusion matters.  He has over 18 years of experience as an FBI Special Agent. During his first seven years, then case agent Kachhia-Patel handled foreign counterinlliegence and insider threat matters.  He intimately worked Operation Ghost Stories and was responsible for the arrest of the Russian Illegal Anna Chapman. Over the last decade, ASAC Kachhia-Patel has focused his efforts on nation state hacking efforts through field work as well as program management from FBI Headquarters. Notably, while stationed in Washington DC, then SSA Kachhia-Patel helped to manage large intrusions including the Sony Pictures destructive malware attack and healthcare PII intrusions to name a few.  Until recently he managed a team investigating computer network exploitation emanating from Asia.  ASAC Kachhia-Patel also serves as an advisor for Fordham University and FBI’s International Conference on Cyber Security (ICCS). 

Vaughn Swartz is the Chief Compliance Officer for North America, overseeing and managing compliance risk for Rabobank’s North American businesses in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. In this role he is responsible for advising on a broad range of legal, regulatory, risk, and compliance matters and leading the management of regulatory compliance programs supporting Rabobank, Rabo AgriFinance, De Lage Landen, and North America Wholesale.

Mr. Swartz is a member of the Rabobank North America Executive Team, serves on the boards of Rabobank Capital Services, Inc. and Rabo Securities Inc. and is a member of the global compliance management team. Rabobank is a global financial services firm headquartered in the Netherlands with operations in 43 countries.

Rick sets the strategic direction for, and directs the tactical implementation of PNC’s AML modeling program. His portfolio includes suspicious behavior detection, sanctions screening, customer verification, and data visualization. Rick’s prior experience includes interest rate risk management, capital management, and credit portfolio analytics.

Rick earned his MS in Management Science and MBA degrees from Case Western Reserve University as his AB in Economics from the University of Michigan. His professional certifications include the Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS), Certified AML and Fraud Practitioner (CAFP), and Fintech Innovation: Future Commerce, Information Technology from MIT.

Mandy Ramlow is a financial services professional with over 25 years of banking experience, of which the majority have been spent in the AML and Compliance field. She joined Bank of Montreal (BMO) in 1996 and has held numerous progressively more senior roles throughout the bank including in the branches and Compliance before joining AML in 2004. She has played key roles in supporting integration/merger activity and managed several different Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) teams before taking on the role of U.S. AML FIU Director in February 2014, and the Managing Director of the AML North American FIU overseeing the U.S and Canadian jurisdictions in 2019. In April of 2022, Mandy was promoted to the role of Managing Director, AML Systems, Data, Innovation and Operations.

Mandy is a thought and process leader who has led and implemented numerous risk processes and key efficiencies, including the introduction of Robotics within AML and working with Model Management leaders to leverage Machine Learning to enhance detection models. Mandy is an active industry participant leading the way in working with law enforcement, fraud leaders and others in the industry in proactively identifying money laundering trends.

Mandy began her banking career at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, in Sydney Australia, prior to moving to the United States, where she has a B.A from the University of Wisconsin and completed her MBA in September 2022. Mandy has been CAMs certified since 2008.

Enton Nikaj, CAMS is a compliance professional with over 15 years of experience in BSA/AML inclusive of KYC. He has served as the KYC Officer for the USA Branches of foreign banks with responsibilities including oversight and implementation of the KYC framework, KYC Advisory, managing the Customer Due Diligence/Enhanced Due Diligence team, managing the KYC Onboarding & Renewals and coordinating KYC remediation projects. He has also contributed and assisted with the implementation/upgrade of KYC systems and represented the team in working groups. He has working knowledge of Sanctions and their impact in the client lifecycle and new product approval.

His experience includes interacting with banking regulators during exams, MRAs and Consent Orders and he has in-depth knowledge and understanding of BSA/AML compliance practices and methodologies, including risk assessment, monitoring / surveillance, and testing activities.

Richard Reinhardt is the Supervisory Special Agent for IRS Criminal Investigation’s Cyber Investigations Unit in the New York Field Office (NYFO). SSA Reinhardt oversees a group of Special Agents responsible for detecting and investigating individuals and organizations who rely on cyber and cryptocurrency to engage in illegal activities in violation of U.S. Tax Laws, Anti-Money Laundering and Bank Secrecy Act Statues, and other financial related crimes. More specifically, the NYFO works closely with federal and local law enforcement partners to investigate NFT related crimes, Initial Coin Offering fraud schemes, Cryptocurrency hacks and thefts, and other related cyber and cryptocurrency involved crimes.

SSA Reinhardt has over 20 years of experience as a Special Agent with IRS-CI. He began his career working on an Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) where he was responsible for investigating Money Laundering violations arising from narcotics trafficking. During his tenure with OCDETF, SSA Reinhardt also investigated mortgage and securities frauds that were tied to on-going narcotics investigations.

In 2015, SSA Reinhardt joined IRS-CI’s Eastern Cyber Crimes Unit in Washington, D.C., and later assisted in the development of a Cyber Group for the New Jersey Field Office – which led to high-profile investigations involving money laundering though the use of cryptocurrency in Ponzi schemes, Peer-to-Peer exchanges, Bitcoin ATM kiosks, and narcotics trafficking.

Most recently, in 2022, SSA Reinhardt oversaw the investigation of the first federally charged NFT Rug Pull, which resulted in the arrests of two individuals and the seizure of over $500,000 in cryptocurrency from the scheme.

Prior to joining IRS-CI, Special Agent Reinhardt spent time the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Border Patrol. Special Agent Reinhardt is a graduate of John Jay College of Criminal Justice.