David Caruso

Background

About David Caruso

I've been in AML for 29 years and have done almost everything there is to do—I was a Chief Compliance and AML Officer, founded successful consulting and RegTech software firms, and led a dozen banks through Consent Orders, several banks through DOJ investigations, and one bank through a Senate Permanent Subcommittee investigation. I've worked at and with institutions like JP Morgan, Riggs Bank, Key Bank, Union Bank of California, Wachovia, Washington Mutual, and HSBC. I founded the Dominion Advisory Group and Alert Decision and was Chief Client Officer of TransparINT, a machine learning RegTech firm that changed how investigators find Negative News.A few notable achievements include my time as the Chief Compliance & AML Officer of Riggs Bank, where I was hired to address serious issues cited by the OCC. My team at Riggs uncovered two notorious international corruption schemes involving the government of Equatorial Guinea and Augusto Pinochet. This work led to investigations by the Department of Justice and the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The cases drew the attention of media worldwide and justice authorities in the US, UK, Spain, and Chile. The facts uncovered by our team at Riggs shook US lawmakers and regulators and sparked ten years of active regulatory and law enforcement action against banks across the US. After Riggs, I founded The Dominion Advisory Group, a boutique consulting firm that worked with banks in the US, Europe, and Asia that faced severe regulatory enforcement action. I worked closely with executive management, boards, and outside counsel to craft responses and build entire AML compliance programs, focusing mainly on building monitoring and investigation operations.Intrigued by software in the future of AML Compliance, I joined TransparINT in 2015 as the start-up's Chief Client Officer, leading revenue growth. As someone who spent 20 years on the buying side of technology, it was a fast and eye-opening education selling software. Navigating the complexities of selling into a risk-averse market, TransparINT grew in three years from inception to seven figures of annual recurring revenue and successfully exited in 2018 when Steele Compliance acquired the firm.In 2024, I joined WorkFusion to help spread the message that AI is now actually and meaningfully improving AML & Fraud compliance work. Our AI agents work on thousands of Sanctions, Watchlist, Adverse Media, Transaction Monitoring, and PEP alerts daily. Finally, someone frees up workers to spend time doing investigations.