On June 4, 2026, Crowell partners Caroline Brown and Anand Sithian hosted the ACSS New York Chapter at the firm's New York office for a panel discussion titled "Renewed Focus on Cartels, Transnational Criminal Organizations, and Foreign Terrorist Organizations: Compliance Challenges for Financial Institutions and Multinationals." The sold-out event brought together practitioners from the financial crime compliance community for a timely and substantive conversation at the intersection of sanctions, narcotics trafficking, and AML risk.
The panel featured Caroline Brown alongside Ray Donovan — former Special Agent in Charge of the DEA, lead agent in the capture of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, and now CEO of Stack21 Solutions — and Joe Twinem, former OFAC and FinCEN official and Global Sanctions/AML Strategy Leader at BNP Paribas. Howard Spieler, Citibank, moderated the panel discussion.
The audience reflected a broad cross-section of the financial crime ecosystem, bringing together sanctions and AML compliance professionals from major global financial institutions, attorneys from leading law firms, professionals from the Big 4 and advisory firms, and specialists from compliance intelligence and data companies.
The panel tackled the most pressing questions facing compliance professionals today, including the implications of cartel Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designations for sanctions and AML exposure, the deepening role of Chinese and Indian networks in the fentanyl supply chain, and how OFAC, FinCEN, and allied regulators are deploying sanctions to disrupt trafficking networks. Panelists also offered practical guidance on identifying red flags linked to cartel activity and narco-financing, and closed with a candid discussion about whether the existing sanctions toolkit is equal to the scale of the threat. Following the program, guests enjoyed a post-panel quiz before networking over drinks and appetizers. Thank you to our panelists, attendees, and the ACSS New York Chapter for making this event such a success.
