by Michel Klompmaker

Economic crime scholarship presents an organisation as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, organisations are cheated by their employees, discriminated by corrupt public officials, and face cyberattacks, whereas on the other hand, organisations evade taxes, defraud their customers, and cheat competitors. While fraud, corruption and other forms of economic crime cause immense losses to individual organisations as well to society, many of those crimes are committed by organisations themselves. On Thursday, February 4, 2021 the 2nd Winter Economic Crime Symposium – Organizations: Beyond Victims and Perpetrators was held online by the Centre for Counter-Fraud Studies at the University of Portsmouth. The event sought to explore the network of relationships inside and between organisations and how it should not be reduced to two groups, victims and perpetrators. With a theme focused on economic crime, several professionals gave keynote presentations on a range of topics from brand protection, corruption, corporate compliance, foreign bribery, and intellectual property (IP) crime. The Risk & Compliance Platform Europe was also a media partner and covered the event via its website. This is part two. Continue reading…

With the support of Eurojust, the Dutch fiscal authorities have halted a major scam to avoid the payment of VAT via trading companies. By setting up a string of enterprises in the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland and Croatia, a network of traders in Secure Digital (SD) memory cards for mobile phones allegedly defrauded the Dutch fiscal authorities for an estimated amount of EUR 9 million between 2017 and 2020. During an action day supported by Eurojust, 13 places have been searched and communications equipment, documents and digital evidence was seized. Continue reading…

by Michel Klompmaker

Economic crime scholarship presents an organisation as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, organisations are cheated by their employees, discriminated by corrupt public officials, and face cyberattacks, whereas on the other hand, organisations evade taxes, defraud their customers, and cheat competitors. While fraud, corruption and other forms of economic crime cause immense losses to individual organisations, as well to society, many of those crimes are committed by organisations themselves. On Thursday, February 4, 2021 the 2nd Winter Economic Crime Symposium – Organizations: Beyond Victims and Perpetrators was held online by the Centre for Counter-Fraud Studies at the University of Portsmouth. The event sought to explore the network of relationships inside and between organisations and how it should not be reduced to two groups, victims and perpetrators. With a theme focused on economic crime, several professionals gave keynote presentations on a range of topics from brand protection, corruption, corporate compliance, foreign bribery, and intellectual property (IP) crime. The Risk & Compliance Platform Europe was also a media partner and covered the event via its website. This is part one in a series of five articles on the event.
Continue reading…

by Dina-Perla Portnaar

The Ashton Whiteley Scam illustrates how financial crime really works. Not a lot of personal cases were shared with the public before in order to make financial crime tangible. Here is an outline of the events given by one of the many victims of the Ashton Whiteley Scam that took place a couple of years ago. The man shared his story with me, which we have shared in a couple of articles. Here is part three, the last one.
Continue reading…

The FCA is issuing a warning to the public as reports of ‘clone firm’ investment scams increased by 29% in April 2020 compared to March, when the UK went into its first lockdown. Action Fraud data reveals consumers reported losses of more than £78 million between January-December 2020. Throughout 2020, consumers reported average losses of £45,242 each on average when investing with fraudsters imitating genuine investment firms. The data has been released as part of the FCA’s ScamSmart campaign, alongside advice to help investors avoid fake firms and protect their hard-earned cash. The ongoing financial impact of coronavirus (Covid-19) may also make people more susceptible to these types of clone scams. 42% of investors say they are currently worried about their finances because of the pandemic, and over three quarters (77%) have or plan to make an investment within the next 6 months to help improve their financial situation. However, the FCA highlights even the most experienced investor could be at risk. Three quarters (75%) of investors said they felt confident they could spot a scam. However, 77% admitted they did not know, or were unsure what a ‘clone investment firm’ was. Continue reading…

by Dina-Perla Portnaar

The Ashton Whiteley Scam illustrates how financial crime really works. Not a lot of personal cases were shared with the public before in order to make financial crime tangible. Here is an outline of the events given by one of the many victims of the Ashton Whiteley Scam that took place a couple of years ago. The man shared his story with me, which we will share in a couple of articles. Here is part two. Continue reading…

Mirela Ciobanu & Dina-Perla Portnaar

Almost everyone agrees that 2020 has been a rough year. However, 2021 has not smoothed some of its roughness. Most of us continue working from home, having to balance family life with professional activities, dealing with a high degree of anxiety due to uncertainty of what is going to happen next. However, being able to take part in virtual events has helped us to stray in touch with our peers, to maintain a high level of engagement with our industries and to learn more about the topics that we are interested in – in this case how to fight financial crime and find the right business partner to assist your deal with financial crime from a compliance perspective.
Continue reading…

by Dina-Perla Portnaar

The Ashton Whiteley Scam illustrates how financial crime really works. Not a lot of personal cases were shared with the public before in order to make financial crime tangible. Here is an outline of the events given by one of the many victims of the Ashton Whiteley Scam that took place a couple of years ago. The man shared his story with me, which we will share in a couple of articles. Here is part one. Continue reading…

by Dina-Perla Portnaar

The Ashton Whiteley Scam illustrates how financial crime really works. Not a lot of personal cases were shared with the public before in order to make financial crime tangible. Here is an outline of events of a victim of the Ahston Whiteley Scam a couple of years ago. On the 10th of July 2017, a man was approached by a lady who called herself Julia Wright. She came across as a professional; introducing the company she works for as a well-known, reputable and solid firm, operating in the financial world with customers from all over the world. Because of expansion ideas in Europe, the company approached a selected number of potential investors for their future plans.  Continue reading…

In 2018, due to a failing anti-money laundering policy, ING Bank reached a settlement of 775 million euros with the Public Prosecution Service. Ralph Hamers remained out of harm’s way. Pieter Lakeman, chairman of Stichting Onderzoek Bedrijfs Informatie (SOBI) asked the Court of Appeal to compel the Public Prosecution Service to prosecute Ralph Hamers, who has been CEO of the Swiss bank UBS since September. The Court considers it important “that the standard is confirmed in public criminal proceedings and that bank directors cannot go unpunished if prohibited conduct actually took place during their leadership. Citizens must be able to see that such actions are also not accepted by the government.” According to Pieter Lakeman and his counsel Gabriel Meijers, witness hearings conducted by the IRS about ING Bank showcase that massive and extremely damaging cuts in the anti-money laundering department have been made since Ralph Hamers became CEO of the bank in 2014. Ralph Hamers ignored warnings from his Chief Risk Officer – among others – paving the way for the influx of lucrative yet criminal customers.  Continue reading…