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ICE received partnership award from financial industry

WASHINGTON — The Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS) presented its first ever private sector/government partnership award to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and JP Morgan Chase & Co.

HSI Deputy Executive Associate Director Peter Edge accepted the award last Tuesday in Hollywood, Fla., during the association's annual conference. William Langford, senior vice president and director of global anti-money laundering, accepted for JP Morgan Chase.

The award was presented by ACAMS Executive Vice President John Byrne for HSI's efforts to find innovative ways of detecting and identifying human smuggling and trafficking networks through partnerships with the financial sector.

The partnership is focused on identifying trends and typologies related to human smuggling and trafficking. The goal is to share best practices, relevant red flag indicators and guidance to assist the financial industry with identifying, documenting and reporting financial transactions related to this activity.

About 1,200 people attended the conference, including bankers, regulators, law enforcement officials, real estate professionals, securities industry officials, money service business representatives and other professionals from over 50 countries.

HSI's Cornerstone outreach initiative was launched in July 2003 to systematically and strategically identify vulnerabilities in financial systems through which criminals launder their illicit proceeds. Cornerstone leverages HSI's traditional investigative authorities to identify methods and systemic vulnerabilities exploited by terrorists and other criminal organizations to earn, move and store assets and, in partnership with the private sector, to help close down these identified vulnerabilities.

HSI builds both domestic and international partnerships by sharing law enforcement typologies and methods with businesses and industries that manage the very systems that terrorists and criminal organizations seek to exploit. This sharing of information allows the financial, trade and retail communities to take precautions in order to protect themselves from exploitation. HSI develops "red flag" indicators, tips and insight based on information provided from these industries to more effectively investigate these complex and sophisticated criminal schemes, and detect and close down weaknesses within U.S. financial, trade and transportation sectors that can be exploited by criminal networks.

HSI has reached more than 230,000 private sector employees from the financial, trade and retail sectors educated through over 11,000 outreach presentations.