Ricardo Gomez
Skills and Expertise: What's this?
About Ricardo
- More than fifteen years experience providing consulting services in the United States, Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean.
- Extensive knowledge of the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”), the USA Patriot Act, and OFAC regulations, as well as the AML regulatory framework in Latin America and the Caribbean.
- Experienced in preparing policies and procedures; conducting training; presenting seminars; coordinating independent anti-money laundering evaluations and investigations.
- Interfaces with U.S. Federal and state government agencies, as well as international organizations, including the Financial Action Task Force (“FATF”).
- Chief Compliance Officer for a money transfer company in Florida with licenses in 28 states and a large payment network in major countries in Latin America.
- In 2007 Ricardo joined IPSA International, Inc., an international risk mitigation-consulting firm specialized on anti-money laundering, investigative due diligence, enterprise risk management, litigation support, and cyber security. At IPSA Ricardo developed the anti-money laundering consulting practice for Latin America and the Caribbean.
- Active member of the Association of Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS), Florida International Bankers Association (FIBA), and the South Florida Group of Regional Counsel.
Experience
- Founded Global Compliance Advisors, LLC, to provide specialized consulting services with specific emphasis on anti-money laundering, risk management, and due diligence investigations.
- Provides consulting services to multinational and domestic clients in the banking, financial, legal, and corporate sectors with emphasis on AML, risk management, and forensic investigative services.
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Acted as Project Supervisor in charge of teams of BSA/AML investigators, compliance consultants and former law enforcement agents during different complex projects, including look-backs and high-risk account review projects.
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Conducted remediation projects to comply with Customer Identification Programs (“CIP”) and Know Your Customer (“KYC”) policies.
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Prepared status reports for Senior Management and conducted meetings with regulators to explain the review and investigative process implemented by banks.
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Conducted special projects for a Wealth Management Canadian Bank. Coordinated investigations with the Bank’s Global Financial Intelligence Unit to identify risks related to Informal Value Transfer System (“IVTS”), Black Market Peso Exchange, and OFAC violations. Prepared Investigation Summary Reports and SAR narratives.
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Conducted Bearer Share and Source of Wealth projects to identify gaps and weaknesses of the Bank’s internal processes and provided recommendations for improvement.
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Conducted complex investigations for a Credit Union in Florida to identify and report Money Services Businesses (“MSBs”) involved on Medicare fraud and Black Market Peso Exchange activity.
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Conducted training and special investigation for a wholesale cell phone distributor to identify trade-based money laundering activity, involving companies in Florida, Mexico and Colombia.
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Conducted special risk and gap analysis project to identify potential money laundering risks for one of the largest lottery and gaming companies in the world.
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Conducted AML compliance reviews and risk assessments of foreign financial institutions, including international banks and MSBs with operations in Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, Belize, the Dominican Republic, Curacao, and Antigua & Barbuda.
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Conducted BSA/AML/OFAC independent testing of U.S. financial institutions, including U.S. banks, insurance companies, broker dealers, and MSBs.
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Participated as one of the advisor to a Monitor designated by court to assess the adequate implementation of recommendations provided to a MSB in the U.S.
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Conducted mystery-shopping examinations (secret shopper programs) for MSBs in the U.S. and Canada to identify drug trafficking, terrorist financing, human smuggling, and fraudulent activities.
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Prepared policies and procedures manuals and training material for money transmitters in the U.S. and Mexico.
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Prepared AML policies and procedures and agent compliance manuals for a U.S. insurance company and its foreign subsidiaries located in Ecuador, the Dominican Republic and the Cayman Islands.
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Assisted in the implementation of risk rating criteria of products, services, customer base and geographic location of a Credit Union in Canada and one international private bank in the U.S.
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Conducted complex due diligence investigations of individuals and companies in the United States Latin America, and the Caribbean for law firms and multinational corporations.