Ross S. Delston, CAMS
Attorney + Expert Witness
Washington, DC
Ross S. Delston is a Washington, DC-based attorney, Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS), expert witness and former banking regulator (FDIC) with 40 years of experience in the financial services sector. He has specialized in Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering (BSA/AML) issues for over 17 years.
Representative engagements include participating in two major compliance projects involving international banking and finance, BSA/AML, KYC, and OFAC sanctions: The first, a five-month assignment as part of the Independent Consultant’s team for one of the largest European banks in the aftermath of an enforcement order, and the second, a 15-month assignment as part of the monitorship team for AIG. Other engagements include revising the trade finance procedures for the US operations of a major foreign bank; participating in five annual independent AML audits for a publicly held company; and conducting an assessment of the AML framework of a leading offshore financial center.
Mr. Delston has also acted as a testifying or consulting expert on BSA/AML issues in numerous civil cases, including on behalf of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York in U.S. v. Prevezon, a civil forfeiture case.
Ross has been a consultant to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) since 1997 on Anti-Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) and banking matters and has participated in the AML/CFT assessments of nine offshore financial centers, including Saint Vincent (2010) and Bermuda (2008). He has also been a consultant to the World Bank since 1998 on banking regulation, resolution, insolvency and systemic crisis issues for numerous countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Previously, Ross was a Consulting Counsel, IMF; Of Counsel, Jones Day; Assistant General Counsel, FDIC; and Counsel, U.S. Export-Import Bank. He is also the co-author of two law review articles on trade-based money laundering (TBML), both published in the Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law: “Strengthening Our Security: A New International Standard on TBML is Needed Now” (2012 ) and “Reaching Beyond Banks: How to Target TBML and Terrorist Financing” (2009) .
Ross is a frequent speaker at seminars and conferences throughout the world, has appeared on TRT World News (the English language channel of the Turkish government), CNN International and BBC TV News and has been quoted in numerous publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker, Bloomberg, the American Banker, the Telegraph (U.K.), the Hindu Business Line (India) and the Nikkei (Japan).
For more information, please see: www.linkedin.com/in/rossdelston