Masterclass: Global Drug Trafficking Landscape and Sanctions Implications

Sam Cousins is a Senior Associate at ACAMS, where his work includes supporting public-private partnerships and strengthening ACAMS thought leadership pillar through the development of content on sanctions and risk, particularly the Sanctions Masterclass program and Global Monthly Update. Sam's work also focuses on countering ransomware financing, which includes enhancing industry awareness of the anti-financial crime risks associated with ransomware attacks and supporting the mitigation of those risks through policies, training and public-private dialogue.

Prior to ACAMS, Sam worked on the Sanctions Policy team at UK Finance - the trade association for the UK banking sector.

Dr. Vanda Felbab-Brown is a senior fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution. She is also the director of Brookings’ Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors and co-director of the Africa Security Initiative at Brookings. Previously, she was also the co-director of the Opioid Crisis in America: Domestic and International Dimensions. Dr. Felbab-Brown is an expert on international and internal conflicts, insurgency, terrorism, urban violence, and illicit economies. Her fieldwork has covered Afghanistan, South Asia, Myanmar, Indonesia, the Andean region, Mexico, Iraq, Somalia and the Horn of Africa, Nigeria, and other African regions.

In 2020 and 2021, Dr. Felbab-Brown served as a senior advisor to the congressionally-mandated USIP Afghanistan Study Group.

She is the author of five books - Narco Noir: Mexico’s Cartels, Cops, and Corruption (forthcoming); The Extinction Market: Wildlife Trafficking and How to Counter It (2017); Militants, Criminals, and Warlords: The Challenge of Local Governance in an Age of Disorder (2017; co-authored); Aspiration and Ambivalence: Strategies and Realities of Counterinsurgency and State-Building in Afghanistan (2013); and Shooting Up: Counterinsurgency and the War on Drugs (2010) as well as many policy reports, articles, opeds, and congressional testimonies. She frequently consults for the U.S. government. A recipient of numerous awards, Dr. Felbab-Brown received her Ph.D. in political science from MIT and her B.A. in government from Harvard University.

Celina Realuyo is Professor of Practice at the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies at the National Defense University where she focuses on U.S. national security, illicit networks, transnational organized crime, counterterrorism, and anti-money laundering and counter threat finance issues. As a former U.S. diplomat, international banker with Goldman Sachs, State Department Director of Counterterrorism Finance Programs, consultant, and professor at the National Defense, George Washington, and Joint Special Operations Universities, she has two decades of international experience in the public, private and academic sectors. She speaks regularly in English and Spanish on “Managing U.S. National Security in 21st Century,” “The 3 R’s: Responding to Risk with Resourcefulness,” “Following the Money Trail to Combat Terrorism, Crime, and Corruption” and “Combating the Convergence of Illicit Networks in an Age of Globalization.” Professor Realuyo is a regular commentator on global affairs for CNN en Español, Foreign Policy, Reuters, and Univision and has testified before Congress on national security, terrorism, and crime issues. She is a graduate of the Harvard Business School, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, International Institute for Strategic Studies and Women in International Security.

John E. Smith, former Director of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), is co-head of Morrison Foerster’s National Security practice, and a partner of the Global Risk + Crisis Management group and Investigations + White Collar group. After serving 11 years as a top official at OFAC and three years as its Director, John brings to the firm unmatched experience in economic sanctions, enforcement, and national security.

Both in the United States and globally, clients turn to John for his deep experience and unique perspective on the complexities and escalating risk of U.S. and multilateral sanctions. He is a trusted advisor for clients navigating significant civil and criminal enforcement actions by U.S. and other government prosecutors and regulators.

While serving as a top official at OFAC, John was centrally involved in all aspects of developing, implementing, and enforcing U.S. government sanctions requirements. As OFAC Director, he oversaw every OFAC enforcement case against financial institutions and global operating companies. John played a pivotal role as OFAC moved to the center of our nation’s response to the world’s most complex and challenging national security and foreign policy crises, working closely with other governments and multilateral agencies and the private sector.

John has leading expertise on U.S. sanctions, anti-money laundering (AML), and export controls cases and policies. While serving at OFAC, he worked closely with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to pursue major sanctions and export controls enforcement matters, including significant civil and criminal penalties against major global actors and noteworthy cases against malicious cyber actors. He has overseen the U.S. government’s economic sanctions efforts, imposing sanctions on heads of state, countries, and illicit actors, conducting enforcement actions against dozens of major financial institutions and companies around the world, and developing innovative sanctions enforcement policies to address evolving U.S. national security priorities.