Crypto-assets and Terrorism: Known Knowns and Known Unknowns

Joby is a global subject matter expert on cryptoassets, illicit finance and emerging threats. Joby has 18 years of experience and expertise in strategic policy making, critical thinking, threat and risk analysis across the U.K. Government, intelligence and regulatory community. In his previous role Joby was responsible for the management of the Financial Conduct Authority’s Strategic Assessment Team, overseeing a team of analysts tasked with delivering high quality intelligence reporting on money laundering, fraud, market abuse, corruption and other forms of criminality across the regulated sector.

As part of his role Joby has undertaken extensive regulatory and threat analysis of cryptoassets and represented the U.K. on a variety of high-profile engagements. Recently Joby has produced a range of thought leadership papers covering cryptoassets, their regulatory framework, the threat environment and cryptoasset business models. Joby has also had articles published relating to the importance of threat analysis and intelligence sharing.

Vito Armonavicius is a multilingual certified anti-money laundering and financial crime specialist with over eleven years of experience in the anti-financial crime field.

He has held a number of roles across money service business, retail and corporate banking and fintech industries in the UK and abroad where he had exposure to anti-financial crime advisory, risk management, financial intelligence and investigations, sanctions compliance and AML & KYC operations. He worked at Barclays and Western Union and is currently Head of Complex Investigations at Revolut and Associate Fellow at the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies at RUSI.

Vito is a specialist in risk management, open source and social media intelligence gathering, various investigative techniques, data analysis and investigative reporting with a keen interest in cyberpsychology, terrorist and extremist financing, and the intersection between money laundering and cyber analytics. He is the author of an article called Psychoanalytic Approach to Lone-Wolf Terrorist Financing Investigations, which has been published by ACAMS Today; and has lectured at Lithuania’s Mykolas Romeris University, covering the topic of Terrorism and Terrorist Financing. Vito is Associate Fellow at the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and has been a regular presenter for RUSI Europe’s Project CRAAFT covering case studies on right-wing extremist financing.

Tiffany Polyak is an Anti-Financial Crime (AFC) Associate specializing in Threat Finance for the Global Thought Leadership team at ACAMS. She analyzes potential threats related to money laundering and terrorist financing while also assisting in building public-private partnerships. Tiffany earned her Master of Arts (M.A.) in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies from Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) in May of 2021. Before obtaining her M.A., Tiffany received her Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Biology with a focus in molecular genetics and psychology from Indiana University Bloomington. Prior to ACAMS, she researched at various organizations centering around biological weapons proliferation, the crime-terror nexus, terrorism financing, and has also worked briefly in AML compliance. Tiffany can speak Spanish and is currently learning Russian. She holds certificates in anti-money laundering (CAMS), sanctions (CGSS), cryptocurrency blockchain investigations (CTCE), and open-source intelligence (C|OSINT). Tiffany’s research interest centers around the illicit financial flows regarding virtual currencies and how emerging technologies can potentially be misused by criminal and terrorist entities.

Greg represents a new breed of compliance and anti-financial crime professional, combining an IT background with a deep understanding of international anti-financial crime regulations. Throughout his career he has managed teams as well as designed and overseen processes in first and second lines of defence working in a variety of sectors including MSBs, international money transfers and e-money institutions. Since joining FINTRAIL he led a number of consultancy projects with VASPs including independent audits, crypto-related advisory services and training. He co-chairs the Fintech FinCrime Exchange’s Expert Working Group on cryptocurrencies involving various international FinTechs operating within the crypto sector.