Sylvia Shweder is the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training Regional Resident Legal Advisor for Counter Wildlife Trafficking (CWT), based in Laos. She designs, implements, and manages capacity building programs for judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement officers on CWT issues in Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, and Mongolia.

Sylvia has worked for the DOJ since January 2008. She is on-detail from her position as a federal prosecutor (Assistant U.S. Attorney) in New York, where she handled and supervised an array of criminal cases, including business and securities fraud, international narcotics and money laundering, and human trafficking. She conducted 11 jury trials, including convicting a high-level foreign government official of money laundering in 2020. Additionally, at various times she served as her office’s coordinator for mortgage fraud, tax crimes, bankruptcy fraud, pretrial diversion, new AUSA training, and international issues, for which she handled mutual legal assistance and extradition requests and met with foreign delegations. During that time, Sylvia also conducted criminal justice training programs in Mongolia and the Philippines for the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Institute. As a General Crimes Deputy Chief, she oversaw the prosecution of wildlife trafficking, among other crimes.

Prior to joining DOJ, Sylvia was a litigation associate at the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, where she specialized in criminal defense and investigations. Prior to that, she clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Preska of the Southern District of New York.