Steve Garfinkel
Senior Vice President & Senior Program Manager for Global Investigations
Citigroup
Steven Garfinkel is a Senior Vice President and Senior Program Manager for Global Investigations at Citigroup. He recently appeared in the Netflix documentary, “Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street,” based on his extensive work as a Special Agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The Madoff case was the largest Ponzi scheme in history. Mr. Garfinkel directed the investigation into the recovery of assets, identifying key witnesses, undertaking extensive interviews, and tracing and seizing billions of dollars in assets stolen by Madoff and his accomplices.
Mr. Garfinkel developed a deep expertise in complex fraud investigations during his 21-year career as a Special Agent with the FBI, where he dedicated his entire career to investigating white-collar crime. Mr. Garfinkel began by serving on Wire and Bank Fraud squads in the FBI’s New York office. He soon became a founding member of the Computer Crime Squad where he directed one of the first international cyber investigations in the Vladimir Levin/Citibank case, resulting in the successful prosecution of computer hackers and their associates in multiple jurisdictions around the world. Mr. Garfinkel subsequently rose to Supervisor of the FBI’s Internal Bank Fraud and Money Laundering Squad in New York, where he directed fraud investigations that led to dozens of convictions. After the events of 9/11, he supervised terrorist financing cases, working with the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department to develop the first screening mechanisms for tracing terrorist funds.
In 2002, Mr. Garfinkel was appointed Supervisor over all fraud and public corruption cases in the White Plains, New York Resident Agency. There, he led investigations of financial crimes and public corruption cases, successfully resolving high-profile, high-dollar cases, including the Bayou Hedge Fund fraud and the Andrew Kissel mortgage fraud scheme, plus numerous cases involving bribery of public officials.
After completing his distinguished career with the FBI, and prior to joining Citi, Mr. Garfinkel served as a consultant with Stroz Friedberg where he managed internal investigations, intelligence and due diligence, forensic accounting, asset tracing and special masters and monitoring assignments. His clients included multinational corporations, court appointed monitorships, governmental entities, and high net worth individuals. At Citi, Mr. Garfinkel oversees a diverse array of sensitive, high-profile bank fraud matters, financial investigations and policy issues.
In addition to his investigative experience, Mr. Garfinkel has developed and taught several courses on bank fraud, money laundering, organized crime, and cybercrime at esteemed institutions including the FBI Academy in Virginia, the International Law Enforcement Academy in Budapest and foreign training facilities around the world. He was also an Adjunct Professor at the Fordham University Gabelli School of Business where has taught white-collar crime and has presented at AICPA events including the Annual Forensic Accounting Conference. In addition to being a CPA, Mr. Garfinkel is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist, a Certified Fraud Examiner and is certified in Financial Forensics by the AICPA. He holds a Master of Business Administration from Michigan State University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo.
