About Us
James F. Dowling, CFS
President/Managing Director
James Dowling is the founder and Managing Director of Dowling Advisory Group. He has more than 30 years experience in the areas of fraud, misconduct, anti-money laundering (AML) and risk management. His career includes extensive experience in federal law enforcement, "Big Four" accounting and regulatory compliance. Prior to forming DAG, Jim was the Managing Director in the Forensics practice at KPMG where he led regulatory compliance matters, as well as fraud and misconduct investigations.
Jim is a recognized industry leader in Financial Regulatory Compliance. He has assisted numerous financial institutions, as well as "non-bank financial institutions" such as casinos, broker dealers, and money service businesses (MSBs) in improving their AML programs, risk assessments, and policies and procedures in both proactive and reactive situations. Jim also has provided AML/BSA training to clients, regulators, and governmental agencies including the Federal Reserve Private Equities Group, the National Drug Intelligence Center, the Central Intelligence Agency and state gaming regulators. In the area of fraud and white collar crime, his investigations have included fraud and misconduct, fraud against financial institutions, theft and misallocation of corporate funds, and asset tracing.
Jim has testified as a fact and expert witness in depositions, civil trials, and criminal trials in both state and federal court. These trials included allegations of money laundering, tax evasion and other white-collar crimes.
Prior to his Big Four experience, Jim was a Special Agent with the IRS Criminal Investigation Division and the Anti-Money Laundering Advisor to the White House Drug Policy Office. In this capacity, he provided policy, analytical and technical assistance for domestic and international money laundering issues. He was responsible for preparing numerous threat assessments and strategic initiatives to address those threats. Jim was also a contributing author of the most recent U.S. Government's National Money Laundering Threat Assessment and Strategy which was signed by the President.
As a former Special Agent, Jim investigated and supervised complex financial investigations of national and international scope. He spent more than six years as an undercover agent investigating off-shore tax shelters and criminal enterprises engaged in money laundering and tax fraud.
Jim earned a bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Western Michigan University and a master's degree in Computer Information Security from Eastern Michigan University.
jim@dowlingadvisory.com
Brian Y. Lopez, CFE, CIDA
Director
Brian is a Director with the Dowling Advisory Group. Brian has over 17 years of experience providing attorneys and their clients, as well as companies, with investigative, financial and economic consulting services in connection with business, accounting, Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)/Anti-Money Laundering (AML), and fraud-related issues.
Brian has been a forensic investigator with KPMG LLP, Durkin Forensic Inc., CliftonLarsonAllen LLP and Grant Thornton LLP. Throughout Brian’s career, he has participated in fraud investigations involving clients in a broad range of industries, including gaming, construction, engineering, entertainment, finance, healthcare, hospitality, logistics and telecommunications.
Types of investigations with which he has been involved include credit card fraud, embezzlement, violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), earnings management, misappropriation of corporate assets, Ponzi schemes, third-party vendor fraud, and various types of funds tracing. Additionally, Brian has conducted forensic data analysis engagements at bank and non-bank financial institutions, including Money Services Businesses (MSBs), Casinos, and Broker/Dealers.
Brian has extensive experience with gathering and interrogating electronic data from a variety of information systems and has created an assortment of complex data analytic methodologies to assist in the analysis of all types of investigations and reviews. Brian also has deep experience in data analytics involving BSA/AML programs in the analysis of Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs) and Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs), as well as transactional monitoring system analysis and data flow analysis.
Brian has deep experience with the development of data analysis tools and methodologies, and regularly presents, writes, and instructs on the topic of forensic data analysis.
Brian holds certifications as a Certified Fraud Examiner and a certified IDEA Data Analyst (CIDA). Brian received his Master of Business Administration from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, and his Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from the University of Washington.
Ron Schmidt, CPA
Manager
Ron Schmidt is a Manager with the Dowling Advisory Group (DAG) and specializes in the evaluation and analysis of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Programs. Ron is also a Certified Public Accountant.
Ron started as a Revenue Agent with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 1991 conducting tax audits of small and medium sized businesses. In 2003, Ron moved to the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) Program at the IRS and for over 20 years conducted and supervised BSA compliance examinations, specializing in examinations of casinos and card clubs and large Money Service Businesses (MSBs). He was one of the first examiners at the IRS to work casino and card club BSA compliance examinations and was significantly involved in the development of the IRS’s BSA casino examination program.
Ron has extensive experience in reviewing the adequacy of AML Programs and analyzing transactional data to determine if entities are meeting their Currency Transaction Report (CTR) and Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) reporting requirements as well as their recording keeping requirements under the BSA and conveying these results to the entity’s Management and Compliance Department personnel.
Ron was also a Group Manager in the IRS BSA Program. This included managing the BSA Group in Las Vegas, NV that examines larger casinos and other high-risk cases as well as a group in El Monte, CA that examines a variety of entities covered by the BSA, including Card Clubs and Virtual Currency kiosk operators. In his work as a Group Manager, Ron reviewed, evaluated and approved examiner’s work, gave input on issues they were developing and met the Management and Compliance Department personnel to assist the examiner in conveying the examination results.
This work has brought Ron into collaboration with other Federal and State agencies, including the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), IRS Criminal Investigations (IRS-CI), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Department of Justice (DOJ) and state gaming regulators.
Ron has represented the IRS at numerous outreach presentations as a speaker/panelist. These included outreach events hosted by the American Gaming Association, the BSA-AML Compliance Group, the Practising Law Institute, the Southern California Tribal Gaming Roundtable and regional ACAMS Chapters. These discussions have helped attendees understand BSA compliance responsibilities as well as current compliance issues.
Ron has also been involved in training IRS examiners in BSA examinations. He participated in a team that rewrote the IRS training material on Large MSB Examinations and was the Lead Instructor in presenting the material to examiners new to these types of examinations. He has also presented numerous workshops on casino examinations and mentored several new examiners in their first casino/card club examinations.
Anthony Bohorquez, CPA, CFF, CFE
Director
Anthony has over 20 years of professional experience providing forensic accounting and investigative services to attorneys, audit committees, and companies related to internal investigations, regulatory inquiries, risk assessments, and economic damage matters. During his career working with large accounting and consulting firms, he has assisted clients in various industries including construction, entertainment, financial services, gaming, manufacturing, and not for profit.
He has conducted forensic data analysis engagements for financial institutions related to Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering (“BSA/AML”) programs. He has performed data analytics related to Currency Transaction Reports, Suspicious Activity Reports, and transactional monitoring. He has also performed data validation and data flow analysis of BSA/AML programs.
Anthony has extensive experience working with clients to identify and extract data to be used in the analysis of structured and unstructured data. He utilizes data analytics to identify areas of risk, such as internal control weaknesses and potentially fraudulent activity.
Lyle H Davis, CFE
Manager
Lyle Davis is a manager with the Dowling Advisory Group (DAG). He has more than 28 years of experience conducting and supervising compliance and financial investigations involving diversion, fraud, public corruption, organized crime and money laundering. His career includes extensive experience in federal law enforcement and BSA regulatory compliance. Prior to joining the DAG, Lyle worked in risk management as a compliance consultant for Kaiser Permanente. He reviewed, recommended and managed corrective action plans to ensure alignment with company policies, procedures and regulatory requirements. Lyle also conducted, directed and reviewed internal investigations ensuring regulatory notifications and responses were in compliance with state and federal regulatory requirements.
Lyle is a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) with extensive experience in regulatory audits and investigations. Lyle has been recognized for his leadership as Group Supervisor for the High Intensity Financial Crimes Area Task Force (HIFCA), which investigated the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), structuring, tax evasion and money laundering violations. The HIFCA task force reviewed numerous Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR) and Currency Transaction Reports (CTR) daily. Lyle developed several best practices that redesigned investigative methodology, increasing regulatory audits, investigations, asset forfeitures and fines and penalties.