Crystal hosted this webinar to bring together four distinguished women professionals to discuss their experiences, challenges, and insights in the financial crime and cryptocurrency compliance space. The panel included:
Nicolette Brown: Content & Communications Director, Crystal Intelligence, London, UK, who led the discussion.
Karyn Kenny: Of Counsel – DeMarco Law Firm, PLCC, New York, USA.
Jessica Chuah: VP of Growth for APAC at Crystal Intelligence, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Bel Perez: Senior Product Owner at HAWK: AI, Berlin, Germany.
Oonagh van den Berg: RAW Compliance, Braga, Portugal.
Career Journeys and Professional Evolution
The panelists shared diverse pathways into financial crime-fighting work, demonstrating that expertise in this field can emerge from varied backgrounds. Karyn Kenny’s journey began with aspirations to be an English professor teaching medieval literature, but a paralegal position at the US Attorney’s office led her to prosecution work. She specifically gravitated toward financial fraud cases, noting that this area was predominantly male-dominated, which motivated her to establish herself in the field. Her career progressed from prosecuting cases in Las Vegas to teaching and eventually serving as a resident legal advisor at three embassies, working with international partners on financial crime combat strategies.
Jessica Chuah’s background started in accounting with PwC as a tax associate before moving into internal audit and banking. Her transition into the crypto space was catalyzed by a small Bitcoin investment that sparked her fascination with decentralization concepts. This led her to work extensively with prosecutors, police, and anti-corruption agencies, leveraging her compliance background to support investigations with evidence and analysis.
Bel Perez took a most remarkable route. Beginning as a waitress in Las Vegas gambling pits, she encountered fraud cases that captivated her interest. These cases led her to build teams for different casinos and eventually transition into banking and product development. Her hands-on experience with fraud detection now informs her work designing and preparing anti-fraud tools for global financial institutions.
Oonagh van den Berg trained as a lawyer at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, where she learned the crucial lesson that effective financial regulation requires a deep understanding of products and their associated risks. Her career spanned various roles at JP Morgan, from product development to compliance advisory work, before she focused on financial crime prevention across traditional finance and emerging fintech sectors.
The Evolving Financial Crime Landscape
The panelists identified several critical trends reshaping the financial crime environment. Jessica highlighted the “Red Queen effect” in technology, where professionals must constantly adapt to rapidly evolving threats. She emphasized the emergence of AI-enhanced scams, account takeover fraud, and complex criminal ecosystems in the Asia-Pacific region that combine human trafficking, online gambling, money laundering, and potentially organ trafficking in end-to-end operations.
Karyn observed a fundamental shift in the skill requirements for financial crime, noting that while traditional fraud required significant expertise and training, modern technology has dramatically lowered barriers to entry. Generative AI and large language models enable virtually anyone to create convincing fake bank pages, identity documents, and other fraudulent materials that previously required specialized skills. This democratization of fraud tools has led to an explosion in the number of people engaging in financial crime.
The demographic targeting of fraud has also evolved significantly. Karyn highlighted the vulnerability of elderly populations, who, as “digital immigrants” rather than “digital natives,” are more susceptible to sophisticated online scams. These victims often have accumulated wealth in retirement accounts, making them attractive targets for fraudsters. The combination of technological sophistication and demographic targeting has created what Karyn described as a “tidal wave” of financial crime affecting vulnerable populations globally. She added that AI and launch language model technologies had also impacted the demographic profile of criminals, by making fraud so much easier than in past eras and thereby lowering the barrier to entry for criminals.
Bel emphasized the constant evolution of fraud techniques, noting that security professionals must respond to current threats and anticipate future developments. This creates a perpetual state of catching up while trying to predict how existing security measures will be circumvented next. She recommended a smarter and more adaptable use of technology to anticipate, counter and stay ahead of criminal trends.
Oonagh, having worked across TradFi and crypto, valued the collaborative, integrated approach of the latter—engineers, risk professionals, and leadership work together to solve problems. In contrast, TradFi remains siloed, hindering learning and adequate risk understanding. She added that risk should be central and understood across departments, but excessive regulation in TradFi limits innovation. Crypto fosters empowered teams, open discussion, and “healthy conflict” that drives realistic, automated risk management. Leadership in fintech environments feels more engaged, with business units owning and understanding risk, unlike TradFi, where compliance often dominates without holistic insight.
Gender Dynamics in Financial Crime-Fighting Career Paths
The discussion revealed persistent gender-related challenges across the industry. Oonagh shared personal experiences with pregnancy discrimination, including recent discrimination following the birth of her third daughter. She emphasized that natural life events for women, including pregnancy and menopause, should not impact career progression in the modern workplace.
Oonagh also raised concerns about sexual harassment and discrimination in crypto, suggesting that the industry may not have implemented the protections and standards developed in traditional finance over time. She stressed the importance of speaking openly about these issues to drive necessary changes.
Jessica discussed the male-dominated nature of traditional finance, the so-called “old boys’ network”, and crypto sectors, estimating that women hold less than 25% of management positions in crypto. She described having to provide extensive justification for her presence in professional settings, answering questions about her background and qualifications that male colleagues typically don’t face. Despite holding multiple degrees, she continues to encounter skepticism about her expertise and authority in the field and feels pressured to work harder than her male colleagues. Under 6% of top management jobs are held by women.
The panelists identified concerning trends in hiring practices, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, where young women are sometimes recruited for business development roles that may involve inappropriate expectations beyond professional responsibilities. Jessica referenced cases where women transitioning from banking to fintech or crypto were taken advantage of due to naivety about industry practices.
Karyn shared her experience with violence and threats in the courtroom, having received three death threats during her prosecution career—a form of intimidation her male colleagues had not experienced. She noted that violent criminals often had hostility towards being prosecuted by women, viewing female prosecutors as especially threatening to their authority and self-image.
The Critical Importance of Mentorship in Financial Crime Fighting
All panelists emphasized mentorship as essential for career success and industry development. Bel noted that mentorship takes many forms beyond traditional movie portrayals of mentor-student relationships. Mentors can include managers, colleagues, or even negative examples of behavior to avoid. She stressed that successful professionals are responsible for making themselves available as mentors to others. She also noted that mentorship can take many forms, even criticism.
Oonagh described launching a groundbreaking mentorship program through Raw Compliance in 2020, connecting professionals globally who might never have met otherwise. The program successfully created lasting relationships and communities while highlighting the importance of finding the right mentor-student fit. She emphasized that mentorship needs evolve throughout one’s career, and relationships may naturally transition or conclude as people grow and develop.
Karyn advocated for informal and formal mentorship structures, drawing on her experience with the Department of Justice’s institutional mentorship program. This formal system involved applications, vetting, and structured matching processes, which she characterized as following a “speed-dating” format, that connected mentors with mentees who might not have initiated such relationships independently. In the Freedom of Information Act section, she described her experience with a young attorney, demonstrating how valuable cross-disciplinary mentorship can be.
The panelists stressed that women must take more responsibility for mentoring other women, creating networks and opportunities like traditional “old boys clubs.” While women often critique male networking advantages, Karyn noted that they haven’t consistently built equivalent supportive structures for other women. Oonagh added that mentors can also be men.
Technology’s Role in Fighting Financial Crime in the Crypto Industry
The discussion revealed the promise and limitations of technological solutions to financial crime. Bel identified context and visibility as the primary areas where AI can address fraud and compliance blind spots. Traditional investigations requiring extensive human hours to establish context and connections can now be accomplished in seconds using AI tools. This technology enables investigators to see entire networks and clusters of suspicious activity rather than isolated incidents, providing comprehensive visibility into criminal operations.
Oonagh cautioned against viewing AI as a silver bullet for financial crime prevention but praised its potential for improving data collection. She emphasized that traditional rule-based and scenario-based transaction monitoring systems struggle to identify evolving typologies, particularly with low-risk accounts involved in money mule operations or pig butchering scams. The sophistication of modern financial crime often involves small transaction volumes and behavioral changes that current systems cannot detect effectively.
She added that financial institutions underutilize available data, often reducing 1,200 customer data points to just 120 for analysis purposes. This leaves valuable information unused that could provide insights into customer behavior and expected transaction patterns. Oonagh argued that traditional Know Your Customer (KYC) processes are insufficient because customers can misrepresent themselves during onboarding. At the same time, actual account usage patterns revealed by transaction monitoring reveal true behavior and intent.
Social Engineering and Human Vulnerabilities
Jessica highlighted social engineering as the foundation of most fraud schemes, particularly in Asia-Pacific. Criminals exploit cultural trust and language diversity and manipulate individuals into compromising their credentials and assets. Even security-trained professionals remain vulnerable—Jessica shared her near-miss with a sophisticated birthday scam that appeared legitimate.
Current fraud techniques include multilingual phishing campaigns, social media impersonation (particularly of government officials and tax authorities), and romance scam-investment hybrids that combine emotional manipulation with financial fraud. These schemes target individuals seeking emotional support or connection, often involving teams of scammers using the same profile to manipulate multiple victims simultaneously.
The human element remains the most challenging vulnerability to address technologically. While AI systems can process vast amounts of data and identify patterns, they cannot prevent people from falling in love or making emotional decisions that compromise financial security. This highlights the critical importance of education and awareness campaigns alongside technological solutions.
Educational Initiatives and Consumer Protection
Karyn emphasized education as fundamental to financial crime prevention, noting that criminals maintain their advantage by focusing entirely on targeting their victims. At the same time, law-abiding citizens divide attention among family, work, and other responsibilities. She advocated for comprehensive cybersecurity hygiene education and stressed the importance of intergenerational conversations about online safety, particularly with elderly family members who may be targeted by romance and investment scams.
The panelists agreed that consumer education must be an ongoing priority, with resources made available through multiple channels and in various formats to reach different demographics effectively. Karyn shared examples of bank employees recognizing potential fraud when elderly customers make unusual withdrawals for online relationships, highlighting the importance of training financial institution staff to identify and intervene in suspicious situations.
Regulatory Environment and Compliance Challenges
The discussion touched on regulatory developments across different regions. Jessica noted increased cooperation between regulators and industry through sandbox programs in Asia, allowing for collaborative development of compliance frameworks rather than rigid top-down regulatory imposition. This public-private partnership approach recognizes that emerging risks require expertise from both regulatory and industry perspectives.
Una expressed concern about premature regulation, particularly citing the European AI Act as potentially hampering regional innovation development. She argued that moving too quickly with comprehensive regulation before fully understanding technological capabilities and risks could create unintended consequences and drive innovation to other jurisdictions.
The panelists emphasized the need for balanced approaches that manage risks while allowing for continued innovation and development in the financial technology and cryptocurrency sectors.
Outlook and Recommendations
The webinar concluded with several key recommendations for the industry:
Continuous Learning and Adaptation: All panelists emphasized the critical importance of ongoing education and professional development. Jessica advocated against complacency, noting that growth comes from asking questions and learning to work with uncertainty. Bel encouraged questioning everything and everyone, regardless of position or apparent expertise, building critical thinking skills as a foundation for career advancement.
Community Building and Support: The panelists stressed the importance of women supporting other women in the industry, creating networks and mentorship opportunities that can help address gender disparities and workplace challenges. Oonagh emphasized that the group represents a supportive community available to help others facing difficulties or seeking guidance.
Personal Empowerment: Karyn’s closing message focused on self-belief and resilience. She encouraged professionals to define their narratives rather than allowing others to limit their potential. She emphasized that failure should be viewed as a learning opportunity rather than a permanent setback and stressed the importance of persistence and confidence in pursuing career goals.
Balanced Approach to Technology: While embracing technological solutions to financial crime, the panelists emphasized the continued importance of human expertise, critical thinking, and understanding the limitations of automated systems. The most effective approaches combine technological capabilities with human insight and judgment.
Conclusion
The discussion revealed the complex, evolving nature of financial crime in the digital age, where traditional approaches must be supplemented with new technologies, enhanced education, and stronger collaborative networks. The emphasis on mentorship, continuous learning, and mutual support provides a roadmap for developing the next generation of financial crime professionals while addressing persistent workplace challenges.
Watch the conversation in full.
