A round-up of fraud-related items. See the August 2002 print edition of Professional Security for more on fraud prevention.
Investigating and prosecuting transnational crime is the title of a conference at the University of Kent, Canterbury, on July 10. Speakers at Keynes College include Det Chief Insp Martin Hewitt and Det Insp David Holmes of Kent Police on problems facing police investigation of transnational crime; Lawrence Fiddler of the Home Office Police and Organised Crime Unit, on organised crime and European Co-operation; Mike Kennedy, the the new UK member of the provisional Eurojust Unit; Annabelle Bolt, Head of International Criminal Law, HM Customs and Excise, on prosecuting international crime; Tony Wilson of the Serious Fraud Office, on financial crime and Europe; and Dr Indira Carr of Kent Law School on the Council of Europe Convention on cyber crime. To book, ring Judy Lee, at the University of Kent on 01227 823275 or e-mail: [email protected].
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Current laws for attacking the proceeds of crime are virtually worthless in the fight to block terrorist funding, it is claimed. Prof Barry Rider was giving the International Chamber of Commerce Commercial Crime Services annual lecture on attacking the assets of economic crime and terrorism. He argued at the Skinners’ Hall, London, that that the war against organised crime and terror cannot be won using the current strategy of attacking the proceeds of crime alone, nor by simply passing more laws or pouring more resources into the fight. Prof Rider, Director of the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies and Professor of Law at the University of London, spoke of the dangers of trying to attack terrorist networks with the same legal tactics developed for fighting organised crime. Terrorists have learnt much from organised crime about moving secret funds, he said, but terrorists’ objectives are different, and much of their funding comes from legitimate sources. Compliance with anti-money laundering legislation costs £600m a year in Britain alone, he claimed. CCS, the London-based anti-crime arm of the ICC, held a half-day workshop on counterfeiting, and trade and banking frauds.
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Hertfordshire computer forensic consultants DataSec with City law firm Mishcon de Reya’s Fraud and Brand Protection Group are launching training courses for commercial managers and IT staff. DataSec report companies are ever more likely to undertake internal investigations in an effort to deal with internal employee fraud and computer misuse. Adrian Reid, Managing Director at DataSec says: ‘It is understandable that companies do not wish to engage independent consultants every time they have an internal issue and therefore they need to know how to avoid the pitfalls and to understand the basic principles of IT investigations. Gathering and presenting evidence lawfully is a complex matter and there are many legal issues.’ DataSec report recent cases include sabotage of company resources, unlawful interception of e-mail, access to pornography and theft of company data by departing employees.
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Personal information such as bank statements, credit card slips and utility bills are being salvaged from rubbish by professional fraudsters, a survey claims. Information management firm Experian looked at the contents of 400 bins in Nottingham, where the company is based, to show how easy it was to obtain personal information from everday rubbish bags. The exercise showed: nearly three-quarters (72 per cent) of bins contained the full name and full address of at least one person; two in five contained a whole credit or debit card number that could be linked to an individual – four-fifths of these had an associated expiry date; one in five bins contained a bank account number and sort code that could be related to an individual’s name and address; one bin even contained a signed blank cheque. Expoerian added that only one in seven (14 per cent) held nothing of interest to fraudsters.
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Much fraud is not investigated for want of police, Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, told a London audience. Giving the annual KPMG law lecutre, the Government’s senio law officer said that he had particular concerns about a lack of help for the Serious Fraud Office, which he supervises. He reported that since 1997 police support for SFO cases has fallen from an average of four and a half officers a case to about one officer.
