LATAM Financial Crimes Compliance Lead

We’re looking for an experienced financial crimes professional to help strengthen compliance coverage for customers and payment activity involving Latin America. This role will have a particular focus on higher-risk cross-border activity and Venezuela-related sanctions considerations. This is a hands-on position combining complex customer diligence and investigations with broader program development. You’ll evaluate challenging cases, provide sanctions guidance, and help turn regulatory requirements into practical controls and processes that can scale with a growing financial services business. Key Responsibilities Perform enhanced reviews of higher-risk customers and businesses with connections to Latin America, including Venezuela. Evaluate ownership structures, beneficial owners, related parties, counterparties, PEP exposure, geographic risk, and cross-border activity. Review and validate source of funds and source of wealth using financial records, corporate documents, public information, adverse media, and customer-provided materials. Analyze international payment activity, including wires, ACH, and other transaction flows, for indicators of money laundering, sanctions evasion, corruption, or other financial crime concerns. Investigate sanctions-screening alerts involving customers, counterparties, financial institutions, beneficial owners, jurisdictions, vessels, and other relevant parties. Apply OFAC requirements to real-world customer and transaction scenarios, including blocked parties and property, restricted jurisdictions, sectoral restrictions, the 50 Percent Rule, and general or specific licenses. Support decisions involving account restrictions, blocked or rejected transactions, regulatory reporting, recordkeeping, and escalation of potential sanctions violations. Investigate unusual or potentially suspicious activity and prepare well-supported internal case escalations and unusual activity documentation. Support onboarding, periodic reviews, trigger-based reviews, and ongoing monitoring of higher-risk international relationships. Help enhance the broader LATAM financial crimes framework, including risk assessments, customer acceptance criteria, EDD standards, sanctions controls, procedures, escalation protocols, training, and management reporting. Monitor regulatory and sanctions developments and translate changes into workable policies, controls, procedures, and system requirements. Partner with Compliance, Operations, Product, Technology, and other stakeholders to implement program improvements. Maintain clear case documentation, supporting evidence, decision rationale, and audit-ready records. What We’re Looking For 4+ years of experience in AML, sanctions, EDD, investigations, or broader financial crimes compliance within banking, fintech, payments, or another regulated financial institution. Professional-level Spanish, with the ability to analyze banking records, corporate documents, business information, and source-of-funds materials. Experience supporting international or LATAM customers within a U.S. financial institution, ideally including foreign nationals, entrepreneurs, privately held/family-owned businesses, or multinational companies. Direct exposure to Latin America-related customer or transaction risk and sanctions matters. Venezuela experience is highly desirable. Strong knowledge of BSA/AML, KYC/KYB, CDD/EDD, beneficial ownership, transaction monitoring, adverse media, and suspicious/unusual activity escalation processes. Practical OFAC expertise, including sanctions screening, alert resolution, blocked persons/property, jurisdictional and sectoral restrictions, the 50 Percent Rule, licensing considerations, block/reject decisions, reporting, and recordkeeping. Experience evaluating complex cross-border transactions, international businesses, foreign ownership structures, and source of funds/source of wealth. Familiarity with LATAM financial crime risks such as PEP exposure, corruption, state-owned enterprises, trade-based money laundering, sanctions evasion, and currency-control issues. Ability to independently assess ambiguous or complex cases, identify information gaps, reach defensible conclusions, and escalate when appropriate. Experience with financial crime technology such as screening, transaction monitoring, case management, or investigative research platforms. Strong investigative, analytical, documentation, and written communication skills. Ability to convert new regulations, regulatory guidance, sanctions changes, and enforcement developments into scalable operational controls. Experience coordinating compliance initiatives across multiple teams from planning through implementation is preferred. *OPEN TO NYC, MIAMI OR REMOTE*