Juan Félix Marteau

President of FININT

Professional with 20 years of experience in the field of financial crime, in which he has been actively involved as a trial lawyer, strategic policy advisor, international consultant, national government authority, political advisor, leader of non-governmental organizations, university professor and author of scientific and opinion articles.

He has advised numerous financial institutions and other reputable domestic and foreign companies on corporate risk management and compliance policies regarding money laundering and terrorist financing. In this task, it has designed the institutional engineering necessary for organizations to be effective in preventing illicit activities.

He has acted as an advocate in numerous criminal, administrative criminal and economic criminal litigations in which companies and their executives have been attacked by abusive actions of governmental agencies. In this work, he has led the representation of his clients before the competent administrative agencies and all instances of the Argentine federal justice system, including the Argentine Supreme Court of Justice.

He has participated in numerous high-level missions as a consultant to international organizations on systemic risk assessment of financial crime. As a consultant to the IMF, he has been involved in the development of the Country Strategies of Uruguay, Paraguay and Panama. As an IDB consultant, he was National Risk Assessor for Paraguay. As a UNODC consultant, he was an observer at the Mutual Evaluation of Equatorial Guinea, within GABAC.

He served as National Coordinator for the fight against money laundering and financing of terrorism. He also acted as National Representative of the Argentine Republic before the Financial Action Task Force (FATF-GAFI), the Financial Action Task Force for South America (GAFISUD), the Group of Experts for the Control of Money Laundering of CICAD-OAS. It also advised the National Ministry of Justice and Human Rights on this issue.

In these technical-political positions he put into operation the first Terrorist Financing and Proliferation Risk Assessment, represented the National State in the Second Mutual Evaluation of FATF-GAFI, acting in 4 continents (America, Europe, Africa and Asia); coordinated the first National Agenda against Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing, approved by decree; and was responsible for drafting several bills on terrorism and financial crime, including the draft bill on Illicit Terrorist Associations and Financing of Terrorism, which incorporated these crimes into the Argentine Criminal Code for the first time.

He also advised the Presidency of the Criminal Legislation Commission of the Honorable Chamber of Deputies of the Nation and numerous deputies and senators on financial crimes.

Founded FININT / Financial Intelligence Research Foundation, dedicated to influencing the public agenda on terrorism and financial crimes. As a member of the U.S. State Department Leadership Program (IVLP), he co-founded REAL/Argentine American Network for Leadership. He is currently Director of the Committee on Transnational Organized Crime at the Argentine Council for International Relations (CARI).

At the Argentine public university, he completed his entire academic career in the field of criminal sciences through public competitive examinations. Currently, at the University of Buenos Aires, he is Professor of Criminology (School of Psychology) and Director of the postgraduate course on Global Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (School of Law).

He completed postdoctoral stays at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law (Germany), the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme and the Centre for Sociological Studies on Criminal Law and Institutions (France), and the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Ottawa (Canada). D. in sociology from the University of São Paulo (Brazil). He studied criminology at the University of Hamburg (Germany). He received his law degree from Universidad Nacional del Litoral (Santa Fe, Argentina).

He is a member of the Bar Association of the Federal Capital and the Federal Court of Appeals of San Martín. He is also a member of the American Bar Association.

He is a regular speaker at conferences and specialized meetings in Argentina and abroad; and author of books (Las Palabras del Orden and La Condición Estratégica de las Normas), articles in specialized magazines and articles in the main Argentine newspapers on law, politics and financial crime.

He is fluent in Spanish (mother tongue), French, English and Portuguese. For his work, he also uses German and Italian.