Sharon Cohen Levin

Sharon Cohen Levin is a leading authority on anti-money laundering (AML), Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), economic sanctions and asset forfeiture at WilmerHale. Sharon served for 19 years as Chief of the Money Laundering and Asset Forfeiture Unit in the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY). Since 2006, under her leadership, the SDNY forfeited in excess of $13.9 billion, equal to more than 59% of all federal forfeitures in the United States during this period, of which $8.9 billion has been or will be remitted to crime victims. In 2014 alone, the SDNY forfeited in excess of $7.25 billion, the largest amount collected in any year by any US Attorney's Office since the United States Asset Forfeiture Fund was established in the 1980s. During her tenure, Sharon prosecuted and supervised many of the Department of Justice's most complex and significant money laundering, sanctions and asset forfeiture prosecutions. Sharon has worked closely throughout her career with state and federal banking regulators, the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), FinCEN and the Department of Justice. Over the course of her career she has been recognized with 15 prestigious national and international awards and in 2015 was named one of the 75 “most accomplished female attorneys working in the legal profession today” by The National Law Journal. Sharon is currently an adjunct professor at NYU School of Law, where she leads a seminar on asset forfeiture and money laundering.