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About John Cassara

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John Cassara retired on March 1, 2005 after a 26 year career in the federal government intelligence and law enforcement communities. He is considered an expert in anti-money laundering and terrorist financing, with particular expertise in the areas of money laundering in the Middle East and the growing threat of alternative remittance systems and forms of trade-based money laundering and value transfer. He invented the concept of international Trade Transparency Units, an innovative countermeasure to entrenched forms of trade-based money laundering and terrorist financing. A large part of his career was spent overseas. He is one of the very few to have been both a clandestine Case Officer in the Central Intelligence Agency and a Special Agent for the Department of Treasury.

His last position was as a Special Agent detailee to the Department of Treasury's Office of Terrorism Finance and Financial Intelligence (TFI). His parent Treasury agency was the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the U.S. Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU). He worked at FinCEN from 1996-2002. From 2002-2004, Mr. Cassara was detailed to the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) Anti-Money Laundering Section to help coordinate U.S. interagency international anti-terrorist finance training and technical assistance efforts.


Hawala market in Afghanistan

During his law enforcement investigative career, Mr. Cassara conducted a large number of money laundering, fraud, intellectual property rights, smuggling, and diversion of weapons and high technology investigations in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe for a variety of federal agencies. While assigned to the Office of the Customs Attachi in Rome, Italy, he directed the first truly international money laundering task force, called Operation Primo Passo, (First Step). The innovative operation combated Italian/American organized crime by examining the movement of money between the two countries and represented an early use of financial intelligence to proactively initiate investigations. During his customs career, he was also served two years as an undercover arms dealer. He began his career with Treasury as a Special Agent assigned to the Washington Field Office of the U.S. Secret Service. From 1978-1983, he was a covert Case Officer with the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Cassara resigned his employment with the CIA due to his marriage to a foreign national. He is one of the very few to have been both a clandestine Case Officer in the Central Intelligence Agency and a Special Agent for the Department of Treasury.

Mr. Cassara has been designated a law enforcement expert for the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Europe's Moneyval, and the U.S. government for international mutual evaluations. Mr. Cassara has lectured around the world on a variety of money laundering related topics. He has addressed the FATF, INTERPOL, the Council of Europe, the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Italian Gold Institute, the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units, Treasury's Federal Law Enforcement Training Academy, the FBI Training Academy, the U.S. Treasury, U.S. intelligence agencies including the CIA and NSA, Central Banks, customs and police services, and scores of money laundering seminars and conferences around the world.

Mr. Cassara wrote Hide and Seek - Intelligence, Law Enforcement and the Stalled War on Terrorist Finance; Potomac Books Inc., June 2006 release.