9/11 Twenty-Five Years Later: Part 3: Alex Dill – Patriot Act: The AML Response to Terrorist Threats

Ed. Note: Five years ago, Tom Fox looked back on 9/11 in a 20-year retrospective. This week is the 25th anniversary of that event. We will be rerunning this award-winning podcast so we never forget. On the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack, Tom Fox and guests look back on the tragic event and what it meant for them personally, as well as how it impacted the world of compliance. Today Tom’s guest is Alex Dill. Alex is a scholar and professor specializing in financial regulation, risk management, and compliance. He also has corporate experience in ​the ethics of business practices in finance, bankruptcy, bond covenants, and debt markets. He joins Tom to discuss the Patriot Act’s impact on responding to terrorist threats. How 9/11 Changed AML Before 9/11, AML regulations were very lax and backward-looking. The focus was on prosecuting crimes already committed and on money laundering more than on terrorist financing. Banks weren’t doing meaningful customer due diligence because they felt the process was invasive. After 9/11, this all changed. Law enforcement agencies and financial institutions revamped their policies and procedures to take a more preventive approach to AML and terrorist financing. This led to the Patriot Act. The Financial Response Tom asks Alex whether he saw a similar regulatory response among non-financial institutions regarding Patriot Act AML procedures post-9/11. “There was a huge amount of rulemaking that had to be done,” Alex responds. He adds that public companies adopted customer due diligence and applied it more broadly across sectors, using a risk-based approach. Companies now had to file suspicious activity reports, not just banks. Customer identification was also introduced. “The Patriot Act sought to encourage cooperation among law enforcement agencies and among the financial institutions themselves to share information and obtain information from foreign law enforcement authorities,” Alex tells Tom. The Challenge With The Patriot Act  Alex explains to Tom that the Patriot Act has challenges. A major challenge is detecting the financing behind these attacks. Funds that finance these actions come from both legal and illegal sources, and that is a major issue. Transaction amounts can be small, which may pose a risk for some compliance officers.  Technology in Anti-Terrorism Alex remarks that technology is very important in the fight against terrorism, as it has changed how we function in our world. The downside is that technology has also helped create some of the compliance issues we face today. Social media platforms have helped to create polarization in society, and criminals have used programs like cryptocurrency for money laundering and financing terrorism. However, Alex ends on a positive note, saying the AML Act of 2020 has been helping curb these issues. Resources: Alex Dill | ⁠LinkedIn⁠ | ⁠Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices