Robert Mazur’s 30 years of unparalleled experience as an undercover US federal agent with the Columbian crime cartels enables him to deliver a “one of a kind” inspiring message that can strengthen institutional policies and procedures, motivates key compliance employees, reduces potential corporate and senior management liability, and arms personnel with rare knowledge to improve their ability to identify and manage risk.
Mazur was able to learn untold truths about money laundering because he was believed to be the type of person with whom those secrets were safe. He was accepted for years as a wealthy corrupt American businessman who laundered money for organized crime elements in the U.S., Latin America, Europe and the Middle East.
Mazur reveals the inner workings of the misunderstood and serious threat faced by the financial markets, and effectively delivers the important difference that will empower institutions to identify and avoid massive risk. Hollywood film industry executives would not have committed tens of millions of dollars to start making "Infiltrator", a movie about Mazur’s money laundering related experience if his journey wasn’t “one of a kind”. Mazur is a man whose experience as an undercover US federal agent is so unique and interesting that an internationally released feature length film about his life, starring Bryan Cranston (of Breaking Bad fame), will premier during 2016.
Mazur discovered “the truth” concerning the enormous money laundering related risk faced by the business world when, in a long-term undercover capacity, he became a significant player in the black money markets around the world. He personally participated in highly sophisticated transactions of all kinds with many corrupt senior bank officials, broker dealers, businessmen and attorneys that serviced what has become the US$2.1 trillion of tainted funds seeking “purification” every year.
Mazur reveals how corrupt professionals service tens of thousands of clients that possess “money seeking secrecy from governments”. Those clients include those that control profits of illegal arms dealers, fortunes of drug traffickers, hidden wealth of corrupt heads of State, pilfered treasury funds, white-collar crime proceeds, terrorists financing, unreported income of big time tax cheats, and transactions with sanctioned nations.
Mazur is the only person in the world that, as a long-term undercover agent, got inside this circle to such an extent that it led to his recording hundreds of conversations that formed the foundation for the conviction and imprisonment of more than 50 money launderers, including many senior bank officials. Those officials included board members, and even the President of a bank that had a presence in 72 countries. After their conviction and imprisonment, he also led a team that debriefed some of these senior executives for months at a time. With seized records taken from the bank’s branches around the world pursuant to search warrants, he confirmed the truthfulness of the facts told to him by the jailed bankers. Everything was verified.
Mazur saw an array of interplay between senior management at institutions and those subordinates that laundered. At times senior management was woefully unaware of the risk boiling around them. On other occasions he saw senior management knowingly participate in illegal conduct. Often times, management personnel embraced a willful blindness they thought would otherwise protect them and their institution – a huge mistake.
Accepting the premise that what happened in a given bank scandal is an anomaly, and that it won’t happen at your bank because you have software, compliance officers, and all types of resources that keep the institution on the straight and narrow, is a risky approach. Those words were unfortunately spoken by executives of institutions that thereafter endured huge scandals themselves. Mazur can help a willing team to dramatically improve their ability to identify and manage a sensitive risk that, if not properly addressed, could impose an astronomical cost for reputation loss, the payment of fines, and other repercussions.
Mazur has written many articles about the money laundering risk, including articles published in the New York Times. He has appeared on more than 1,000 radio and TV shows addressing the latest events in the drug and money laundering arena, and he has presented at many of the most prestigious risk and compliance conferences around the world.
