Today in LONDON, there took place a high level FINANCIAL CRIME CONFERENCE 2006, RUN BY IIR CONFERENCES
HTTP://WWW.IIR-CONFERENCES.COM/FINANCECRIME

I attended, even though my right arm is wrapped in fibreglass cast to mend my very broken right wrist, sustained as i tumbled down a steep flight of stairs one recent morning.

The Chairman today was MR. ROBERT WARDLE, DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED KINGDOM’S SERIOUS FRAUD OFFICE. MR. WARDLE DID NOT JUST GIVE THE INTRODUCTION WELCOME AND DISAPPEAR, BUT HE STAYED AND PARTICIPATED FULLY DURING THE COURSE OF THE CONFERENCE.


TO MY MIND, THE MOST IMPRESSIVE SPEAKER TODAY WAS MR. DAVID GREEN, QC, Director of Revenue and Customs Prosecution Office. David Green, QC, is a lawyer who joined the Customs and Excise Prosecutions Office as Director in December 2004. See website  http://www.rcpo.gov.uk
The Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office was launched in April 2005 to handle all criminal prosecutions arising from investigations carried out by HM Revenue & Customs [HMRC]. It brings together the former Customs & Excise Prosecutions Office [CEPO], THE Asset Forfeiture Unit and the Inland Revenue Crime Group. Over 250 members of staff are based in London and Manchester. The RCPO was formed to separate the prosecution function from the HM Customs &
Excise investigation function.

Two very important items discussed today were
1. witnesses and their protection;
2. the value of ordinary policing, especially in combating terrorism financing.
Terrorist finance is a very different ‘animal’ to ‘money laundering’ or ‘fraud’.
‘Terrorists, like commercial criminals still need to move money across borders from the place where the money was collected to the scene of the crime. This forces them to disguise the destinations selected for the funds, as that is where the terrorist outrage will be perpetrated....’
This is where ordinary policing skills are more valuable than all the software that pinpoints terrorist money transfers and lifestyles. Ordinary police officers know all about people’s cunning, they can ‘instinctively’ know when something is amiss. They have the experience of instinctively smelling out deception. This instinct is not ‘gut reaction’ – it is gained through experience. This is not to under-estimate the enormous amount of very difficult work put in by the regulating authorities.

Finally, the one small criticism that could be brought is that one very important point was never discussed – that is, that academic studies in many countries, reveal, repeatedly, that in all financial crimes, insiders place a very big role. Most academic studies reveal that, comforting though good regulatory systems are, most
financial crimes are discovered accidentally or through the actions of whistle-blowers.
Let us hope that the fight against financial crime does not become just a paper chase, where the motto ‘garbage in equals garbage out’ does not prevail, but let’s pray that , with help from police foot soldiers, the fight against financial crime, especially terrorist financing brings excellent results. ENDS.