Journal of Financial Crime Ð Vol. 11 No.
Journal of Financial Crime
Vol. 11, No. 1, 2003, pp. 10±16
# Henry Stewart Publications
ISSN 1359-0790
Page 10
Fraud after Roskill: A View from the Serious
Fraud Oce
Rosalind Wright
Lord Roskill's Committee's Report on Fraud Trials
was published in 1985. It made 112 recommen-
dations, of which all but two were implemented: a
rare success for a committee of this kind and a
tribute to the report's practical and far-sighted
thinking.
The Serious Fraud Oce (SFO), which the author
has headed for six years since 1997, is the embodiment
of the uni®ed fraud investigation and prosecution
organisation, the central vision of the report. It has
been a signal success. In the 15 years of its existence,
it has investigated over 1,000 allegations of major
and complex fraud and has prosecuted hundreds of
defendants. Overall the picture is an encouraging one.
Why then has it had such a bad press and why is it
still seen as a legitimate target for snipers, whether in
Parliament or at cocktail parties? There is certainly
justi®cation for criticism of the tools that are
given to the Oce to perform its truly Sisyphean
task: the resources devoted to fraud investigation are
inadequate; the legislation lacks a substantive
o€ence of `fraud'; the rules on evidence and disclosure
were not devised for cases where a million pages
of documentary evidence are regarded as modest;
computer-generated evidence is ubiquitous and mea-
sured in terabytes (1,000 gigabytes); and the jury to
try these cases still consists, as it has for centuries
when fraud cases were simpler and much shorter, of
12 citizens selected at random and weeded out if
they have a legitimate reason to excuse them from
sitting for trials lasting up to a year.
The problem that the SFO has to face is with the
nature of the cases it tackles. They are, by their
nature, high pro®le, often involving well-known
household names in terms of companies, colourful
city and business ®gures, and enormous amounts of
money. In cases such as these, there has often been
considerable press interest, whipping up a climate
of expectation and excitement that a big fraud has
been uncovered, a prominent entrepreneur has
fallen from grace and that the consequent conviction
of the guilty and compensation for the victims are a
matter of course. Because the SFO operates in the
spotlight, the beam falls on the unsuccessful as well
as the victories. Indeed it shines with blinding bright-
ness on the ones that get away. How shocking it is,
the journalists comment, that people who are
clearly guilty (though, of course, the press cannot
say this in so many words, for fear of action for
defamation, but the hints are only too apparent)
have `got o€', clearly because of the incompetence
of the prosecution and investigation team.
There may be very few such prominent cases, but
those where the jury acquits are the ones that the press
and the public and Parliament remember. It was Roy
Amlot QC who noted that there is a peculiar quality
about famous people who are charged with o€ences:
in many cases, their very fame has a mesmerising
e€ect on jurors, who are then reluctant to convict
them, especially of o€ences which have a relatively
low emotive quality about them, such as fraud,
corruption or tax evasion.
The point, of course, about a system of adversarial
criminal justice, where the onus falls upon the prose-
cution to prove its case to a standard where the tribu-
nal must be satis®ed so that it is sure that the o€ence
has been proved, is that one would expect there to be
a number of cases where, having heard both sides and
listened to the witnesses and the defendant giving
evidence, the tribunal is not so completely satis®ed
of the guilt of the defendant. If juries returned
guilty verdicts in all cases brought by the SFO or
any other prosecuting body, there would be justi®ed
criticism that too many cases where there was the
slightest doubt were being rejected before they
reached trial, or, worse, as is not unheard of in juris-
dictions other than our own, that the investigators
insisted on a full confession extracted from the
defendants before bringing a charge.
As it is, the SFO, in common with all other prose-
cuting authorities in England and Wales, must satisfy
the conditions laid down in the Code for Crown
Prosecutors before a case is brought to trial: that is,
that there must be sucient evidence to support the
charge or charges; the prosecution must be justi®ed
in the public interest; and that there must be a realistic
prospect of a conviction, having regard to all the
circumstances, including the likely defence.

The SFO cannot `get it right' every time: it is
impossible to be able successfully to second-guess
how well its witnesses will come up to proof; how
impressive a witness the defendant himself will
make; how the judge will receive the evidence and
guide the jury; what impact the personalities of the
defendant, his legal team and that of the prosecution
will have on the jury. All these are factors that weigh
in the balance when it comes to the verdict. Why,
even with what is thought and hoped to be the
strongest of cases, the legal teams on both sides, to
say nothing of the defendants and the witnesses,
including the victims of the alleged fraud, as well as
the friends and relatives of the defendants, wait
with bated breath and churning stomachs for the
jury to return from consideration of their verdict.
And, of course, the SFO has made mistakes in its
investigations and its prosecutions; its teams are com-
posed of human beings, often very many of them.
Highly trained and experienced though they are, it
would not be rational to expect them invariably to
avoid the occasional slip. The SFO does, however,
try its best to learn from its mistakes; to identify
those that have occurred to prevent a recurrence of
the same error in another case. Early in its life, the
SFO instituted the practice of `wash-up' conferences,
attended by the entire case team, to review what
went well and what did not; to identify problems,
see how to avoid them again and disseminate good
practice throughout the Oce.
What about the nature of fraud itself? How has
that changed in the 15 years since Roskill?
Certainly there is much more of it, and it is more
complex, involves more jurisdictions and more ®nan-
cial institutions, whether as victims or as conduits or
destinations of the funds. The type of individual
involved in fraud has changed as well: the `white-
collar crook', set apart from his more brutish criminal
counterparts who use violent methods to obtain their
gains, has now become less easily distinguishable
from them. Organised crime has taken to ®nancial
fraud and money laundering and many of those we
investigate at the SFO are professional criminals
with contacts in the underworlds of many countries
and associates who would stop at nothing to use
violence, intimidation and bribery to make their
gains and avoid capture or successful prosecution.
The means available to commit the fraud are more
sophisticated and more easily available to anyone
with a minimal knowledge of IT than they were 18
years ago. The determined fraudster can thus carry
Fraud after Roskill: A View from the Serious Fraud Oce
out a massive scam and hide the traces of his foot-
prints as well as the proceeds extremely quickly,
easily and often successfully. The proceeds indeed
are seldom readily recovered, if at all. The resulting
enquiry by police, civilian ®nancial investigators
and forensic IT investigators can take years and
produce a morass of documentary and computer-
generated material which requires armies of analysts
to decipher and collate.
The types of fraud o€ences have varied little in the
intervening years. The high-yield investment frauds,
advance fee swindles and asset stripping continue
with much the same characteristics as they have had
for many years. One or two types of fraud are seen
more often than others: prosecutions of prime bank
instrument frauds, not much in evidence 15 years
ago, have become so numerous that they have
®nally reached a degree of public attention which
must serve as a salient warning to those who may
be tempted to invest in such chimeras, if only all of
the public were mindful enough of such public
alerts. But experience indicates that no amount of
red ¯ags and salutary stories act as a sucient
deterrent to the determined investor.
The SFO's remit was set by statute, in 1987: we are
limited in what we can investigate and prosecute, to
allegations of o€ences involving serious or complex
fraud. What constitutes `fraud' is not de®ned;
indeed an individual o€ence of `fraud' itself is not
yet enshrined in law. Because of the ¯exibility
given to us by the inclusion of the word `involving'
in the Criminal Justice Act of 1997, we are able to
bring within the ambit of the serious and complex
®nancial and economic crimes we take on for inves-
tigation such criminal o€ences as forgery, money
laundering and corruption, where they are associated
with fraud. We have seen increasing numbers of alle-
gations of both money laundering and of corruption
associated with fraud in recent years.
But the real changes have been noticeable in the
resources devoted to the investigation of fraud.
Six years ago there were still dedicated specialist
major fraud squads in police forces throughout the
country, led by very senior experienced detectives.
In the last six years, those squads have shrunk to a
handful and those that are left are reduced to a
force of sometimes no more than three or four
junior-rank detectives, many forming part of a
Major Crime Unit, responsible for immediate res-
ponse, downing all other work, if there is a terrorist
attack or a `major incident' of any description. This
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applies as much to the Metropolitan area of London
as to the rest of the country. Only the City of
London has preserved, relatively intact despite
reductions in numbers, its dedicated fraud squad.
The City of London force is, indeed, the only
police force in the country which has ®nancial and
commercial crime as one of its principal policing
priorities.
The SFO is resourced to investigate allegations of
major and complex ®nancial fraud. In its 15 years
of operation, the SFO has prosecuted 254 cases
involving 543 defendants; 383 (71 per cent) were con-
victed. In the last six years, 83 cases have been prose-
cuted involving 159 defendants; 131 (86 per cent)
were convicted. There are very few recidivists in
SFO cases: on the whole, convicted white-collar
defendants do not re-o€end. It is well known that
SFO prosecutions have a deterrent e€ect. Indeed,
faced with the increasing number of major cases
referred to us and the diminishing numbers of
police ocers able to be deployed on them, the
SFO has been remodelling itself in the last ®ve or
six years and has become increasingly self-sucient.
Given the fact that in its current caseload the SFO
is dealing with cases in excess of £2.5bn, it represents
exceptionally good value for money, and it has
become more ecient as time goes on. In 1994/5,
its budget was £19.6m. Last year, its budget was
£19.1m. Yet in that time its caseload has gone
from 48 to 80 cases, and its long-term conviction
rate has gone up from 61 per cent to 71 per cent.
Yet the SFO is delivering these lengthy and highly
complex cases on what are still comparatively tiny
resources Ð an average of 2.5 sta€ per case.
The options are many but the ultimate obstacle is
the lack of funds. Where white-collar crime is
given a low priority, and where there are more press-
ing public demands for public funds for education,
for health provision and for the armed forces, a few
major fraud investigations which have to be aban-
doned rank very low down the scale of importance.
Indeed, the public perception of fraud can be gauged
by the constant monitoring of public opinion; the
clip-board inquisitor, who asks the man or woman
in the street how he or she ranks in order of severity
the personal threat to him or her of burglary,
mugging or international money laundering will
scarcely tick the last one. However, put the question
in a di€erent way: how would you feel if you reached
retirement age and found that some crook had made
o€ with your pension and you were forced to rely on
Page 12
the state retirement pension supplemented by social
security? You might get a rather di€erent response.
The cases we have seen recently at the SFO (and
this is borne out by the work done by the National
Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) suggest that
fraudsters are less likely to ®t the traditional image
of the company director who has turned in despera-
tion from the straight and narrow to cook the
books at a time of economic downturn (though
there are certainly many of those left). Many of the
defendants we see are those who have turned to
fraud as an easier, less hazardous way of making a
great deal of money with a low risk of being detected,
still less of being prosecuted successfully, and a rela-
tively short prison sentence if the worst happens,
compared to what those same individuals might
have faced robbing a bank with a sawn-o€ shotgun.
WHAT CAN BE DONE TO REMEDY
THE LACK OF RESOURCES?
One way, Titanic-like, is to move the deckchairs
round a bit: to move what resources there are so
that maximum bene®t can be derived from trained
and experienced detectives. The SFO is presently
working with the City of London Police to examine
better ways to make use of their existing pool of
fraud detectives. This would require relatively small
extra funding to supplement and replace those detec-
tives who might be given a wider remit to investigate
allegations of ®nancial and commercial crime outside
the City boundary which presently go uninvesti-
gated. For this to work, the SFO relies very much
on the support of the government and the City Cor-
poration. It is to be hoped they will support what
looks to be a promising initiative and is very much
the product of the drive and advocacy of the senior
echelons of the City Police themselves.
A National Fraud Squad has been considered as a
possible option, but the resources to create and
support such a large national squad and ensure its
ring-fencing for fraud investigation, at a time when
every available police ocer is being counted and
roped in to tackle terrorist threats and to maintain
traditional policing roles to support the commit-
ments laid upon Chief Constables by the Crime and
Disorder Act, are very unlikely to be forthcoming.
The spectre of London, still a world leader as a
®nancial centre, su€ering the scale of economic and
reputational damage of another Enron, WorldCom
or Tyco and being unprepared and ill-resourced to

investigate it should remind us all of the consequences
of not taking sucient steps now, while the need for
extra funding is comparatively small, to boost the
resources we have. Crime risk management should
be forward-looking, anticipating problems rather
than passively responding to crises.
For years, successive Directors of the SFO have
argued for a general o€ence of fraud, based on the
present o€ence of conspiracy to defraud. The Law
Commission has now ®nally come out in support of
an o€ence, based on dishonesty, and has actually
drafted an o€ence. The timetable, however, for
implementing the Law Commission's recommenda-
tion in legislation has put this very much on the
back burner, by contrast with the alacrity of the
response to Roskill. I need hardly say that I am pro-
foundly disappointed. The proposal provides an
excellent opportunity to simplify and bring up to
date the criminal law in this area.
Increasingly, global business and fast-developing
technology are leading to rapid changes to commer-
cial and business practice. Fraudsters, as much as
honest business people, will seize the opportunities
improved technology provides. It is essential, if
high-tech fraud is to be brought within the ambit
of the criminal law, that the legislative machinery,
the tools given to law enforcement to do the job it
is expected by society to do, is adequate and ¯exible
to keep pace with change.
A general o€ence of fraud is common to most
European and Commonwealth jurisdictions and a
useful o€ence of `false pretences' exists in Jersey and
Guernsey and in Scottish law too.
Unless the criminal law is suciently robust and
¯exible to cope with novel means of committing
fraud and with fast-changing technology, then it
will increasingly be regarded as irrelevant to business.
I believe that a general o€ence of fraud, based on
dishonesty, would go a long way to meeting these
concerns.
A single o€ence of fraud would make the law
more comprehensible to juries, especially in serious
fraud trials. The fraud o€ence recommended in the
report o€ers a single, comprehensive de®nition of
criminal fraud, which would make fraud indictments
simpler and more self-explanatory. This would
enable juries (and indeed any other fact ®nders) to
focus on whether the facts of the case have been
proved beyond reasonable doubt and to apply them
to a simple, readily understandable de®nition of the
o€ence.
Fraud after Roskill: A View from the Serious Fraud Oce
Augmenting the criminal law with a single,
properly de®ned individual crime of fraud would
also dramatically simplify the law, not least in the
public perception. How many non-lawyers feel con-
®dent they know what is meant by `a chose in action'
or when about to sign a cheque refer to it as `execut-
ing a valuable security'? Instead, the law will be fairer
to potential defendants, who will know exactly
where the law draws the line, whatever the context
of the activity.
It would also increase certainty. The Law Com-
mission has drafted a completely new o€ence,
rather than suggesting amendments to existing
o€ences. Those o€ences remain valuable in their
place and address speci®c forms of criminal conduct.
What has been lacking in English law is a clear indivi-
dual o€ence which embraces less speci®c forms of
conduct, but it should also cover activities that
society agrees should be criminal because they are,
essentially, committed dishonestly and with the
deliberate intention of making gains or causing
losses. This will be fraud addressed from the victim's
perspective, not the perpetrator's, freed from the
need to prove a deception in relation to a machine
(such as a computer) or a vulnerable victim. So a
spurious claim of right under civil law will no
longer be available as a defence. This way, it is said,
the law will be better able to keep pace with develop-
ing technology and the rapidly changing commercial
context in which many frauds operate.
One way to improve the management of a
complex fraud trial and shorten the process is to
replace the jury. The Criminal Justice Bill, which is
now (April 2003) before Parliament, contains the
controversial clause replacing jury trial in cases of
serious and complex fraud by trial by a single
judge. It is not my place, while still a statutory
oce holder, to canvass my own views as to the
wisdom of this proposal; suce it to point out what
I see, from my perspective at the SFO, as some
clear bene®ts to the trial process which would not
prejudice the interests of the defence and would
have the advantage of shortening the trial process
and improving the chance of a just outcome. A
non-jury tribunal could consider the trial documents
well in advance of a public hearing, thus saving
innumerable days of court time. The trial judge, in
the absence of a lay jury, would be able to limit
speeches and cross-examination and cut ruthlessly
through non-contentious parts of the evidence. The
trial judge would produce a reasoned judgment at
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the end of the process. Above all, the court would
have the advantage of considering the `whole
picture', something that is not now possible, given
the present concern to prune the case to its bare
bones to keep it manageable for the jury.
Not enough is done to educate the public about a
great many things: fraud is one of them. The
public, sad to say, is ®nancially and commercially
almost illiterate. That is, its members think they
know a good thing when they see one and that is
why fraudsters dress up their scams in such an enti-
cing way, so that the public is fooled into thinking
it is indeed onto a good thing. Prime bank instrument
frauds are a prime example.
There is no such legitimate investment vehicle as a
`prime bank instrument'. They are marketed to
victims as a special, secret ®nancial instrument, used
for inter-bank debt to which the fraudster has
special access and which, for a fee, he can make avail-
able to his client too. Those ever shown a Prime Bank
Instrument, Prime Bank Guarantee or standby letters
of credit should be more sceptical than SFO victims
were.
There are numerous examples of multi-million-
pound high-yield investment schemes on our
books: many have international connections and
several originate overseas and are marketed through
the internet. The US experience of trading pro-
gramme frauds is now mirrored over here; the
novelty factor has not yet worn o€ in the UK and
the danger signals which are now more likely to
alert sophisticated US investors do not ring alarm
bells loudly enough to deter victims over here.
There is a widespread incidence of this type of
fraud compared with the mid-1980s, when the
Fraud Trials Committee was deliberating. The SFO
and a number of police forces in the UK are
investigating cases in which `high yield pro-
grammes', `enhancement programmes', `placement
programmes' or `roll programmes' have been mar-
keted by professional con®dence tricksters. I am
also aware that there is a signi®cant incidence of
this type of fraud in the USA and the SFO has
worked in conjunction with the FBI and the US
Department of Justice in dealing with a number of
such cases. During the course of the last ten years
my department has brought to court a number of
cases involving this type of allegation. The cases are
dicult to investigate and prosecute because the
perpetrators are aware that their schemes are likely
to fall under our scrutiny and they plan accordingly.
Page 14
Typically, in such a case, the investor is told that
very substantial pro®ts are available to individuals
and companies involved in trading in bank funds
and bank instruments, or investing in international
syndicates building dams or power stations. The
investor is told that the sums involved in the business
are very substantial but that trading is not open to
ordinary members of the public, access being
restricted to a small number of highly skilled
traders investing by high-value funding tranches.
He is told that secrecy is vital and it is often a term
of the written investment agreement that the inves-
tor should not disclose to any person their involve-
ment in the investment programme or the existence
of it.
Victims are rarely told of the precise destination of
the funds. They may be promised interest paid into
o€shore accounts. Those who introduce victims to
a scheme do so in return for a commission (deducted
in fact from the principal investment). The inter-
mediary passes the bulk of the funds to a third
party who again, typically, will pass them on to
another in return for a further commission. None
of the money is ever invested in what could be recog-
nised as a legitimate investment capable of generating
a pro®t. Some victims may be treated as `loss leaders'
and repaid their capital on time, in order to encou-
rage others to invest, and some are often paid small
amounts of money to allay their growing fears
about the safety of their investment. These sums are
met either from the principal or from funds provided
by new investors.
Those engaged in this business exchange detailed
correspondence about the progress of investments
and the inevitable delays in the payment of instal-
ments and the repayment of capital. Investors are
invited to `roll over' their capital, month after
month, to ensure maximum `growth'. In this way
the perpetrators attempt to create an opaque screen
of apparently legitimate activity as a protection
against interference by regulatory authorities and
those engaged in criminal investigations. Another
common feature is the professional stakeholder,
such as a solicitor or an accountant, who collects
the victims' money in a pooled account (often a
client account, apparently fully covered by profes-
sional indemnity insurance). The (very) small print
requires the stakeholder to release the funds Ð
usually to an o€shore account Ð only when he is
`satis®ed' that the appropriate paperwork is complete.
Often the solicitor will recruit the investors as clients

of his legal practice and will assert legal professional
privilege when the investigators call.
This type of fraud is always conducted across
national boundaries and from the point of view of
those charged with the investigation of these o€ences
it is often very dicult to establish the guilt of inter-
mediaries who present themselves as innocent dupes.
High-yield investment fraud is particularly preva-
lent at the moment, probably because of the low rates
of interest payable to investors by ®nancial institu-
tions. We will probably see further reductions in
the future. When the Bank Rate is as low as it pre-
sently is and falling a quarter or a half per cent
every three months or so, there is every incentive
for people who would otherwise be extremely con-
servative in their investment strategies to seek oppor-
tunities for their money to earn just a few percentage
points more; and the words `guaranteed return' and
`impressive track record' do look very tempting.
Some of the less scrupulous people whose activities
have been the subject of SFO investigations batten
on to this temptation and o€er seemingly irresistible
propositions: invest in ostriches Ð bonded alcohol
Ð krugerrands (in an earlier era) Ð and the sky is
the limit. Indeed, fresh air is all some investors saw
for the money they had put in.
All have one thing in common. They are designed
to separate the fool from his money. The pro®t
accrues to professional and often organised criminals
who commit their o€ences across national boundaries.
What can be done to demonstrate to a wider public
that they should beware of fraud? Publicising the
results of successful prosecutions would achieve
some public attention paid to this sort of crime.
The problem is that people do not read about poten-
tial scams until they have an interest in them; in other
words, after they have invested in them. The author
answered the telephone at the SFO to two investors
who had placed thousands of pounds in a high-
yield investment programme perpetrated by an o€-
shore fraudulent concern which the SFO has been
investigating. It was not until they read about our
ongoing investigation in the papers that these two,
separately, rang the Oce to ®nd out what their pro-
spects of getting back their money were. They had
not heard from the company they had invested in
for over two years but had not for a moment sus-
pected it might not be wholly above-board until
they read their Daily Express. People are very trusting
and tend to believe the printed word. The words
`guarantee', `sure-®re' and `your money back if not
Fraud after Roskill: A View from the Serious Fraud Oce
wholly satis®ed' have a mesmerising e€ect and
common-sense goes out of the window. How
many people, at the time when buying Spanish
villas was popular, consulted a lawyer over here
before parting with their money to a Spanish (or
more likely an English) crooked property developer
in the Costa del Sol? How many of them would
have dreamt of buying a one-bedroomed ¯at in the
UK without taking advice from a solicitor or using
at least a licensed conveyancer? Why are people
their own worst enemy? I'm afraid that is human
nature and the SFO exists for the very reason that
people get conned. Many years ago, someone put
an advertisement in a US newspaper: `Your last
chance to send $10' with a PO box number.
Nothing more. Thousands did.
But a great deal is being done to tackle economic
crime outside the traditional routes of police investi-
gation leading to a criminal trial. The Proceeds of
Crime Act 2002 has now come into force and will
target, proactively and without the need to obtain a
criminal conviction, the ill-gotten gains made by
major criminals. Many of these will be the money
launderers, seeking to pro®t from the proceeds
of drug tracking, people smuggling and major
fraud; to be able to attack them ®nancially and
deprive them, either by con®scation through civil
proceedings or by taxation, of the gains they have
made will be a most e€ective weapon for law en-
forcement. Lessons have been drawn from the experi-
ence of Ireland's Criminal Assets Bureau, which has
operated very successfully for over a decade and
where, possibly as a consequence, the level of
serious non-violent crime in the Republic is now of
relatively negligible proportions.
The FSA has also now had its full enforcement
powers since the end of November 2001, but so far
little news of powerful enforcement action by the
regulator has come to public attention. It is still strug-
gling with pension providers, endowment policies
and with insurance companies who are feeling
acutely the economic pinch and with the aftermath
of the private pension selling scandals of eight
years ago. At the other end of the City, the
Oce of Fair Trading (OFT) has ¯exed its regulatory
enforcement muscles and has started delivering draco-
nian ®nes for anti-competitive behaviour, which has
enhanced its pro®le and drawn attention to the wide
powers given to the Oce, now transformed into a
body corporate, with its Director-General becoming
Chairman, under the Competition Act 1998 and the
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Enterprise Act 2002. Under the latter legislation, a
new o€ence of being concerned in a criminal cartel
has been created, which the OFT will be able to inves-
tigate together with the SFO. The SFO will, in appro-
priate cases, be able to bring such cases to trial if they
meet the SFO's normal criteria, that is, that they
involve a serious or a complex fraud.
But on the more traditional law enforcement front
there are encouraging signs of what we have learned
to called a `joined-up' approach. Under the legis-
lation introduced in the wake of 11th September,
2001, the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act
of 2001 created new gateways between police,
other law enforcement agencies and the Inland
Revenue, the better to tackle the conduits for
funding terrorism. The latest legislative step, giving
e€ect to the EU Money Laundering Convention of
2000, the Criminal Justice (International Co-opera-
tion) Bill, is going through its ®nal stages and will
simplify and speed up the execution of requests
for international mutual legal assistance (including
freezing criminal assets) and extradition.
WHAT ARE THE INDICATIONS FOR
THE FUTURE?
More emphasis will be placed on fostering public±
private partnerships in the drive to combat commer-
cial crime. Already, some way forward has been
made on developing the initiative proposed by the
Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and the
Metropolitan Police called `Partners in Crime' to
involve and train investigators in the private sector
to do a good deal of the preliminary work in identi-
fying suitable cases of alleged fraud from within busi-
nesses to be referred to police and to work with the
police in its subsequent investigation, this supple-
menting the police resources and ensuring that evi-
dence is preserved and disclosed. The dangers of
identity and credit card fraud are becoming particu-
larly well publicised and the credit card companies
are now working energetically together with police
and the Home Oce to try to make cards as
fraud-proof as possible. E€ectively addressing the
Page 16
problem of card fraud will be particularly relevant
if the introduction of entitlement cards becomes a
reality within the next few years. There are moves
to encourage increased commercial spending on
fraud prevention and education, which is all to the
good, and organisations such as the Fraud Advisory
Panel, whose aim is to help both public and private
sectors to ®ght fraud, will be able to play an impor-
tant role here. More could be done to encourage law
enforcement and regulatory agencies to exchange
information and intelligence, through existing net-
works, such as the Financial Fraud Information
Network, supported by all law enforcement and reg-
ulatory agencies in the UK; but more still remains to
be done in the international ®eld, as commercial
fraud is now very much an international activity
and the speed and ease with which money can be
transferred from one jurisdiction to another is a facil-
ity of which the organised criminal is not slow to take
advantage. There remain very few places in the
world that provide a safe haven for the fugitive crim-
inal or his money, safe from the prying eyes of inves-
tigation and repatriation; but those few that remain
must be tackled and loopholes plugged.
Finally, the increasing involvement of profes-
sionals, whether solicitors or accountants, in facilitat-
ing or even taking part in fraudulent schemes is a
matter of growing concern. Greater responsibilities
for compliance with the anti-money laundering
rules have been and will be placed on the professions
by the Proceeds of Crime Act and by the new Money
Laundering Regulations to be brought in in June
2003, but there are still many who do not realise
the extent of their new responsibilities. More worry-
ing still, there are those who deliberately and dishon-
estly involve themselves with the criminal activities
of their clients, using the cloak of their professional
quali®cations and standing to further criminal acts.
If the ®ght against fraud, which shows no signs of
abating, is to succeed, professionals must be in the
front line of those combating crime, and not
become themselves the targets of law enforcement.
Rosalind Wright CB, Director of the Serious
Fraud Oce.