Monica Morales, CAMS, CFE
FOUNDERMonica Morales is an accomplished financial crime investigation and compliance professional with over 15 years of experience specializing in compliance advisory, financial crime investigations, and risk management. She began her career over 23 years ago within the financial services sector and has advised banks, fintechs, and money services businesses (MSBs) within a variety of industries: financial services, payments, crypto/blockchain, online gaming, cannabis, and other high-risk industries. Her career encompasses roles with leading financial institutions, such as Chase Bank, within the energy industry with BP, consulting firms such as Chartwell Compliance and Ankura Consulting, and public sector service with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, Money Laundering Unit.
Most recently, Monica served as a Director within the Risk, Forensics, and Compliance practice at Ankura Consulting, where she was responsible for managing key client relationships, providing fractional CCO-level support, overseeing multidisciplinary project teams, and ensuring the successful delivery of complex compliance and investigative engagements. Her leadership experience and comprehensive understanding of financial crime frameworks enable her to provide strategic guidance that bridges regulatory expectations with practical, results-oriented solutions.
Experience
In the public sector, Monica served as a Certified Fraud Examiner for the Harris County District Attorney’s Office Money Laundering Unit, where she investigated complex organized crime cases that resulted in successful prosecutions and multimillion-dollar asset seizures.
As a Director in the Risk, Forensics, & Compliance group at Ankura Consulting, she managed client relationships and project execution, identified compliance program gaps, developed remediation plans, and implemented programs that enhanced processes, ensured regulatory readiness, and prepared clients for board and audit engagements. Her leadership has consistently helped organizations strengthen compliance frameworks and improve operational effectiveness.
Her private-sector career also includes leading compliance, risk management, and investigative functions involving anti-money laundering (AML), sanctions, fraud, and corruption risk mitigation. She was designated as a liaison to financial intelligence units within a large financial institution, achieving a 98.6% investigation success rate in reviewing suspicious activity referrals and advancing cases for further investigation. She also has extensive Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) experience, from writing and reviewing SARs to building and enhancing SAR programs to improve quality, efficiency, and regulatory impact. She has protected firms from large-scale exposure by identifying high-risk activity in due diligence processes, building and enhancing compliance programs, and leading complex money laundering, fraud, and corruption investigations across multiple jurisdictions.
Monica has developed regulatory training programs, authored articles on AML best practices, and speaks at multiple industry events on topics ranging from the financial trail of human crime to emerging fraud schemes, including organized crime exploitation of account creation processes.
She is the founder of FinTrace Consulting, an anti-financial crime consulting firm providing compliance, investigations, and litigation support to public and private sector organizations. Guided by its mission to Deter. Defend. Disrupt. FinTrace combines deep cross-sector expertise with a commitment to the highest ethical standards, transparency, and collaboration to protect the integrity of the financial system and disrupt the movement of illicit funds.
Monica holds a B.S. in Behavioral Sciences from the University of Houston–Clear Lake and maintains the Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) and Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS) credentials. She is an active member of ACAMS, ACFE, and ACFCS. Monica also works with non-profits closely aligned with FinTrace’s mission that work to combat crimes of exploitation.