AFC in Practice: Disrupting The Illicit Money Flow From Fentanyl Trafficking

Dr William Scott Grob, CAMS-FCI, CGSS, FRM, CAIA, is the Director of Research and Analysis, responsible for promoting quantitative research methods. He has built customized programs, such as the two Illegal Wildlife Trade certificates developed with the WWF & WJC and the two Ending Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking with the FAST Initiative & Polaris. Previously, he was the ACAMS AML Director for the Americas and Asia. Dr. Grob has over 25 years of financial and banking expertise. His most recent role was as Regional Head of Affiliates Management, HSBC, where he worked on mitigating financial crime and correspondent banking risks across Asia. His 12-year career at the bank also included managing risk within the Equity/FX prime brokerage business, Structured Funds business, and Hedge Fund units.

Brian Holerud is a Special Agent with Homeland Security Investigations. Brian is currently a senior member of the Costa Pacifico Money Laundering Task Force.  The HSI led task force focuses on financial investigations occurring within San Diego and Imperial Counties with an international nexus. Examples of the types of investigations the task force focuses on include money laundering, international fraud schemes, cryptocurrency investigations, unlicensed money remittance, BSA violations and bulk currency smuggling.

Brian has over 18 years of federal law enforcement experience working in the San Diego border region and has been exclusively working financial investigations in San Diego for the last 7 years.

Gregory Mandoli is the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Deputy Attaché China. In this role, he oversees investigative teams in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Guangzhou and Beijing.  Prior to this, Greg supervised the Southern California High Intensity Financial Crime Area task force and developed the El Camino Real Community of Interest, both based in Los Angeles (2015-2019). Other assignments included the US Embassy in London (2010-2015), HSI’s Office of International Affairs in Washington DC (2007-2010) and the Office of Investigations in San Francisco (1998-2007). While in San Francisco, he participated in multi-year secondments to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) task force and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) where he focused on money laundering to the Middle East.

In 1991, Greg received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Economics with an emphasis in accounting from the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1994, Greg graduated from Golden Gate University School of Law with the recognition of a Public Interest Law Scholar. Before becoming a Special Agent, Greg practiced law as a deputy public defender in California where he handled felony matters involving homicide, Three Strikes, gangs and drug offenses. In 2006, Greg graduated from the Naval Postgraduate's Master of Arts program in Homeland Defense and Security where he authored an original theory thesis, The Sandbox Strategy, regarding the interoperability of federal law enforcement agencies. His related professional activities include eight years as an Army Reservist in the Judge Advocate General Corps (2000-2008) and current position as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Maryland where he has designed and taught courses in the undergraduate and graduate programs since 2007. Greg is also CAMS certified.

Hamish McCardle is a New Zealand based private consultant specialising in government affairs and public security, especially in the Asia and Pacific regions. He was a career police officer for New Zealand Police rising to be an Assistant Commissioner of Police. From 2003 onwards he was mainly based off-shore undertaking international cooperation in Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia. His final 15-years of police service being focused on cooperation in China and helping to resolve many long-running and complicated criminal cases. In 2025 he joined the U.S. based NGO PAX sapiens, Joint Action on Drug Elimination (JADE), as a specialist technical advisor for cooperation with China on the wicked problem of fentanyl and other opioids from spreading even further.