Fraud & Financial Crime Asia 2026
21 May, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore
Agenda
(subject to change)
08:15 - 09:00
Event Open & Networking
Registration and coffee on arrival. Please pickup your badges and network with fellow attendees.
09:00- 09:05
Chair's Welcome
Elliott Gotkine
Conference Chair
09:05- 09:15
Opening Remarks from Regulation Asia
Nick Wakefield
Co-founder & Commercial Director
Regulation Asia
09:15- 09:35
Opening Keynote: Cyber Scam Hubs – From Regional to International Responses
Although originally located in South East Asia, cyber scam hubs are emerging in other parts of the world and the scale of their impact on victims worldwide demands an international response. This address will focus on the evolution of these hubs, how they operate, and the need for jurisdictions to work together and with the private sector to bring organised criminal syndicates to justice and recover their illicit proceeds.
Mitsutoshi Kajikawa
Co-Chair
Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering
09:35 - 10:10
Panel: Fraud Today and Money Laundering Tomorrow: The Infrastructure Behind Financial Crime
This panel examines the interconnected infrastructure and hidden plumbing that powers financial crime today – from scam factories and the global networks used to route their proceeds, to the layered mule networks to cryptocurrency flows and professional enablers (DNFBPs) and corporate vehicles that obscure ownership. We examine how these criminal operations evolve into sophisticated money laundering threats targeting destination hotspots like Singapore and Australia, and the implications for regulators, financial institutions and payment systems. The panel will also discuss how virtual assets are used as a primary conduit for laundering scam proceeds and the role of complicit professional gatekeepers in exploiting major financial hubs.
Aibek Turdukulov
Programme Officer, AML/CFT
UNODC Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific
Brian Hanley
Director for APAC
Global Anti Scam Alliance (GASA)
Jonno Newman
Head of Deployment Strategy APAC
TRM Labs
Louise Taylor
Director, Observatory of Illicit Economies in Asia Pacific
Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
Nick Wakefield
Co-founder & Commercial Director
Regulation Asia
(Moderator)
10:10 - 10:45
Panel: Real-Time Rails, Real-Time Risk: Securing Asia's Instant Payment Revolution
ASEAN’s rapid expansion of instant payment systems have transformed settlement, creating frictionless commerce and advancing key financial inclusion objectives. Yet, they have also created new vulnerabilities that allow criminals to dissipate proceeds from scams and other illicit activity in near real-time, complicating detection and cross-border fund recovery. This panel will examine how these systems accelerate fraud, enable cross-border laundering, and challenge regulators and financial institutions. Key discussion points will include the use of Agentic AI for automated layering and collection for terror financing, the challenge of building security and appropriate friction into payments designed for consumers, and the role of international initiatives in addressing these cross-border financial crime risks.
Harsh Tiwari
AFC Expert
NICE Actimize
Kah Wee Lim
Director – Payment Fraud Disruption
Visa
Will Tully
Asia Head of Fraud, WPB
HSBC
Kenneth Gay
Chief FinTech Officer
Monetary Authority of Singapore
(Moderator)
10:45 – 11:05
Networking Break
11:05 - 11:40
Panel: Collective Defence: From Information Sharing to Coordinated Disruption
Financial crime is increasingly networked, often exploiting fragmentation between institutions. Across APAC, public–private partnerships (PPP) and intelligence-sharing platforms are emerging as a structural response, with the ambition of moving beyond information exchange towards coordinated disruption. The discussion will focus on how these frameworks are evolving in practice, the legal and governance constraints that shape them, and what is required to translate shared intelligence into measurable impact. The panel will also explore the legal and operational frameworks enabling information exchange, including the role of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs), and consider the design, objectives, and operational realities of major information sharing platforms in APAC. A key theme will be how firms can better translate shared data into actionable intelligence to enable true network-level disruption.
Hiroshi Ozaki
Executive Advisor
KPMG AZSA LLC
Josh Plant
Director
AlixPartners
Nancy Chau
Senior Manager, Anti-Money Laundering
Hong Kong Monetary Authority
Sungyong Kang
Criminal Intelligence Officer
Interpol
Hannah Cassidy
Partner
A&O Shearman
(Moderator)
11:40 - 12:15
Panel: Follow the Money: Cross-Border Intervention in an Era of Real-Time Crime
Financial crime now operates at unprecedented speed. Funds can traverse jurisdictions, payment rails and asset classes within minutes – compressing the window for detection, escalation and recovery. Effective disruption therefore depends not only on earlier detection, but on the capacity to act decisively across borders before intelligence loses operational value. This session will examine how financial institutions, technology providers and law enforcement agencies are recalibrating investigative and intervention models to meet this challenge. Panellists will explore evolving laundering typologies, legal and evidentiary constraints, and the structural friction that can impede coordinated action. The discussion will assess what a modern cross-border disruption architecture must look like when speed, alignment and institutional readiness determine outcomes.
Daniel Greiller
Vice President Strategic Alliances
Feedzai
Guy Sheppard
Executive Director, Head of AI Strategy and Adoption
Standard Chartered
Shigeru Yotoriyama
Former Senior Commissioner
Japan National Police Agency
Nick Mays
Leader, Financial Intelligence Unit Asia Pacific / Middle East
Western Union
Manesh Samtani
Editor
Regulation Asia
(Moderator)
12:15 - 12:35
Fireside Chat: Insider Threats and the Whistleblowing Regimes That Should Catch Them
In this session, Pav Gill, who exposed the Wirecard scandal, will talk about insider threats and the whistleblowing regimes designed to catch them, drawing on his unique experience and subsequent work in building new whistleblowing platforms. He will dissect why internal channels fail, compare the vastly different architectures of protection- and incentive-based frameworks, and deliver actionable strategies for firms to fortify their organisations.
Pav Gill
Founder & CEO
Confide Platform
12:35 - 13:35
Lunch & Networking Break / Sponsored Luncheons
Stream A: Inside the Institution
Stream B: Across the Network
13:35 - 14:10 - Stream A
Panel: Identity Assurance in a Synthetic Age
Digital identity is the bedrock of the modern financial ecosystem, but this foundation is being shaken by the rapid rise of generative AI, deepfakes, and sophisticated synthetic identity fraud. This new reality places immense pressure on established verification and authentication methods, from remote onboarding processes to biometric systems, which are increasingly vulnerable to spoofing and injection attacks. This panel will address the construction of convincing synthetic identities, the dual risks of expanded remote attack surfaces, biometric resilience, and verification models, also examining how to responsibly manage behavioural analytics and alternative data while navigating privacy concerns and third-party dependencies.
Darren Yan
APAC Partnerships Director
Sumsub
Gautam Prakash
Country Manager (South East Asia / ANZ)
Vonage
Ingrid Beroña
Chief Risk Officer
Gcash
Jee Meng Chen
Head of Financial Crime Compliance
CIMB
Nithya Subramanian
Senior Reporter
Regulation Asia
(Moderator)
13:35 - 14:10 - Stream B
Panel: Destination Integration: Financial Hubs, Corruption and Capital
While global financial hubs race to attract capital, their very competitiveness creates significant ‘destination risk’, making them magnets for illicit funds. Corrupt actors and their professional intermediaries often exploit complex legal structures, opaque investment vehicles and weak identity verification to funnel capital into high-risk sectors. This panel will examine how financial centres can build digital trust and balance their economic ambitions with integrity safeguards. The panel will also discuss how bad actors exploit gaps in identity verification to facilitate illicit capital flows, particularly through the use of professional enablers. It will also highlight vulnerabilities in real estate, private markets, and investment migration schemes where the ultimate beneficial owner’s identity is obscured, and consider how to enhance trust without undermining economic competitiveness.
Anthony Hope
Group Head of AML, CTF and Fraud Risk
National Australia Bank
Farhan Samsudin
Chief Audit Executive
Maybank
Sok Kuan Moi
Head of Financial Crime (incl Trust & Fiduciary Services) Asia & Singapore
HSBC Private Bank
Debra Au
Co-Chair
Global Coalition Fighting for Financial Crime (GCFFC)
14:10 - 14:45 - Stream A
Panel: Transaction Monitoring in the Age of Adaptive Crime
As financial crime becomes an industrialised, AI-driven enterprise, legacy transaction monitoring systems are proving insufficient. Criminal networks now adapt in real time, optimising around static rules and exploiting model blind spots. In response, financial institutions are deploying machine learning and behavioural analytics, yet this technological arms race creates its own challenges. This session will explore strategies for tackling adversarial adaptation, threshold optimisation, and sophisticated model evasion tactics. Panellists will discuss how to leverage behavioural analytics while managing the inherent risks of model drift and flawed feedback loops, and how to overcome the operational bottlenecks created by false positives and slow investigative response times.
Hamida Khan
Head of APAC Compliance, AML Advisory and CBK
BNP Paribas
Kota Sekiya
Deputy Director and Head of Counter Financial Crime Group
Japan Financial Services Agency (FSA)
Manish Kumar Bisht
Senior Director, Financial Crime & Compliance
Concentrix
Jamie King
Director, Forensic and Financial Crime
Deloitte
(Moderator)
14:10 - 14:45 - Stream B
Panel: Liquidity Corridors: Crypto, Stablecoins and Cross System Transfers
As regulatory scrutiny tightens on traditional banking, illicit actors are increasingly turning to alternative liquidity corridors to move value across borders. From stablecoins acting as parallel settlement layers and non-custodial wallets enabling direct asset control, to informal value transfer systems and trade-based schemes, these channels allow funds to move seamlessly between regulated and unregulated environments. This session will deconstruct how value moves through informal transfer systems and manipulated trade invoices, analyse the role of stablecoins as settlement layers and the oversight challenge of non-custodial wallets, and examine the exploitation of perimeters between regulated systems, gaming platforms, and other emerging digital ecosystems.
Chivy Chan
Chief Compliance Officer
DigiFT
David Strager
Cyber Attaché
U.S. Embassy Singapore
Kah Kit Yip
Group Head, Blockchain and Digital Assets
UOB
Sugandhi Govil
Director Compliance, APAC
MLRO Singapore and Deputy MLRO UAE
Circle
Anna Gates
Senior Advisor
AlixPartners & Web3 Harbour
(Moderator)
14:45 - 15:20 - Stream A
Panel: Governance Under Pressure: AI and Model Risk Management
Artificial intelligence is becoming embedded in financial crime compliance, influencing detection, alert prioritisation and investigative decision‑making. As model capability advances, supervisory attention is increasingly focused on governance, validation and accountability. In a dynamic and adversarial threat environment, this raises important questions about model risk management, oversight structures and senior management responsibility. The session will examine how firms are approaching AI governance in practice – and whether existing frameworks remain fit for purpose. The discussion will cover the operational and regulatory challenges of deploying advanced AI, the design of effective governance frameworks and validation methodologies, and practical strategies for managing model risk and implementing effective guardrails for safe deployment.
Chye Kit Chionh
CEO & Co-Founder
WIDTH
Darshini Ramiah
Senior Manager (AI Governance and Safety)
Infocomm Media Development Authority
Leigh James
Head of Financial Crime, Singapore and International Wealth & Premier Banking (IWPB) Asia
HSBC
Raju Nair
Managing Director, Group Head – Platform, Analytics and Surveillance Operations, Legal & Compliance
DBS
Anthony Hope
Group Head of AML, CTF and Fraud Risk
National Australia Bank
(Moderator)
14:45 - 15:20 - Stream B
Panel: From Poaching to Payments: Tackling the Trafficking in Natural Resources and Wildlife
The fight against financial crime is expanding to a new frontier: the illicit trade in natural resources. Criminal syndicates are generating billions of dollars from activities like illegal logging, wildlife trafficking, and unregulated mining, exploiting the global trade system to launder the proceeds. These are not just environmental issues; they represent a significant and growing vector for trade-based money laundering (TBML), sanctions evasion, and corruption that directly exposes financial institutions to severe regulatory and reputational risk. This panel will focus on the TBML methods used in high-risk sectors like the illegal wildlife trade and conflict minerals, practical strategies for enhancing supply chain due diligence, and the critical role of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in disrupting these criminal networks. It will also cover how to identify red flags in trade finance documentation and correspondent banking relationships.
Hemanshu Parekh
Executive Director – Financial Crimes Surveillance Operation, Thematics and BTL
Standard Chartered
Louise Taylor
Director, Observatory of Illicit Economies in Asia Pacific
Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
Sam Inglis
Wildlife Programme Manager
ADM Capital Foundation (ADMCF)
Anir Bhattacharyya
Partner, Asia Co-Head Integrated Risk Management
AlixPartners
(Moderator)
15:20 - 15:45
Networking Break
15:45 - 16:00
Fireside Chat: Lobsters, the Death of Civilizations, and the Risk-Based Approach
In a world of accelerating change, the pressures on financial crime professionals are evolving in complex and unpredictable ways. This session will explore the ‘lobsters’ – the new breed of technical and technological threats – that are fundamentally reshaping the compliance landscape. We will also confront the ‘death of civilizations’ – the immense geopolitical shifts, the evolution of sanctions regimes, and the rise of new economic crime typologies that challenge our traditional frameworks. Against this backdrop, how can leaders effectively apply a risk-based approach to not only manage these threats but also guide their workforce through the disruption? This session will enhance our understanding of modern financial crime, and how we can adapt, optimise, and lead our teams into an uncertain future.
Chee Kin Lam
Managing Director & Head of Legal & Compliance
DBS
Nick Wakefield
Co-founder & Commercial Director
Regulation Asia
(Moderator)
16:00 - 16:35
Panel: Sanctions, Conflicts of Law, Legally Grey Zones and Indirect Exposures
In an era of escalating geopolitical tension, financial institutions face profound embedded risks lurking within their legacy portfolios and complex cross-border relationships. Historical vulnerabilities related to sanctions, terror financing, and correspondent banking are now being actively examined by regulators. This panel will explore the challenge of identifying and remediating these hidden risks, the complexities arising from conflicts of law and legally grey zones, and the implications of recent geopolitical events on sanctions compliance programmes. The discussion will focus on managing indirect exposures, navigating diverging international sanctions regimes, and ensuring robust controls across the entire client lifecycle.
Ahmed Drissi
APAC AML Lead
SAS
Emily Dias
APAC Head of Sanctions, Legal & Compliance,
Morgan Stanley
Raymond Wong
Former APAC Head of Sanctions, BNY
Serhane Victor
Head Sanctions Compliance, ASEAN and South Asia
Standard Chartered Bank
Claire Franklin
Partner, Forensic and Financial Crime
Deloitte
(Moderator)
16:35 - 16:55
Fireside Chat: Hiding in Plain Sight – The Mauerberger Network and the Next Scandal in the Making
A decade after 1MDB exposed how billions moved through the global financial system, vulnerabilities remain. Fugitive financier Jho Low is now seeking a US presidential pardon – a reminder that major scandals rarely end cleanly. Now, Billion Dollar Whale co‑author Tom Wright is reporting on a new and unfolding case in Southeast Asia: the alleged multi‑billion‑dollar Mauerberger network. The investigation traces proceeds from industrial‑scale crypto scams allegedly channelled through Thai corporate interests and a web of layered cross‑border structures – financial institutions, corporate vehicles and global luxury assets – engineered to move capital and manufacture legitimacy. Parliamentary resignations have followed in Thailand, and an international manhunt is underway. The mechanics have evolved. The money moves faster. The architecture is more complex. The question is no longer whether this echoes 1MDB –but whether the same enabling conditions are taking shape again, in real time.
Tom Wright
Co-Founder
Project Brazen
New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer finalist
16:55 - 17:00
Closing Remarks
Nick Wakefield
Co-founder & Commercial Director
Regulation Asia
