The SFO will now form a 'case team' of lawyers from its permanent staff of around 300, to pursue the investigation. Although this could take several years, an SFO spokesman observed that the remit of the investigation would not be confined to Barclays Bank. Indeed, he said:
'We don't mention Barclays in our statement, just Libor.'
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| Who shall guard the guards? |
The spokesman also failed to mention that SFO lawyers/investigators often have a severe conflict of interest; for no common-sense rule exists which prevents them from leaving law enforcement to take much-more highly-paid jobs in the private sector.
It has also been unofficially disclosed that the SFO abandoned its previously-secret plans to investigate the 'rate-fixing' scandal last September, mainly for 'budgetary reasons.' Whilst a previous Director of the SFO was recently reprimanded by senior UK High Court Judges for bowing to external pressure and unlawfully taking it upon himself to drop a high-profile fraud, and corruption, case (concerning criminal activities dating back to the 1980s) resulting in the waste of huge amounts of tax-payers' cash.
Sadly, the wider track record of the UK SFO has been even more farcical .
This link will take Blog readers to the external website of the UK Serious Fraud Office
Until recently, the Home page used to contain the following 'mission statement' (replete with split infinitives):
'Our aim is to protect society from extensive, deliberate criminal deception which could threaten public confidence in the financial system. We investigate fraud and corruption that requires our investigative expertise and special powers to obtain and assess evidence to successfully prosecute fraudsters, freeze assets and compensate victims.'
Now all this (although particularly badly-written), can appear (at first glance) to be perfectly laudable, until you begin to read the actual performance figures of the SFO and compare them with reality.
The SFO's own annual reports reveal that an expensive rampart, apparently built to enforce the criminal law and hold back an invasion of fraud and corruption, has been the legalistic equivalent of the Maginot Line. For a vast, mobile and much-better- financed army of racketeers (escorted by mercenary lawyers), has simply danced round the sedentary line of dunces with law diplomas entrenched at the SFO, as though it wasn't there. In the case of the ongoing, multi-billion dollar 'Amway' fraud, the invaders actually hired former, SFO Deputy Director, Peter Kiernan, to guide them, and I have no doubt that banksters have already recruited similar law enforcement traitors from the amoral ranks of the legal profession.
During the period 2011-2012, the SFO cost British tax-payers about £37 millions whilst the organization added 35 millions pages to its collection of 112 millions electronic documents. During the same period, although agents of the SFO apparently received more than 500 tip-offs, it only prosecuted 20 cases and managed to recover around £50 millions of assets stolen by means of fraud. Of this pathetic figure, virtually nothing went back to the victims.
In reality, although around £2 billions of fraud was reported to UK law enforcement agencies in 2011, no one can evaluate for certain the true level of fraud going unreported. Indeed until 2006, no agency of government even bothered to try. Currently, the best available estimates (from the UK Fraud Authority) are that, during the past several years, at least £50 billions ( that's fifty thousand million) has been stolen annually from the British economy by means of fraud. However, this still- rapidly-expanding figure has not yet included the titanic 'rate-fixing,' or 'MLM income opportunity,' frauds. Thus, when presented as a percentage of the overall damage being caused by fraud in Britain, the UK SFO's quantifiable contribution to law enforcement (i.e. its approximately 0.001% annual recovery rate), has been so insignificant that it is not even worth the mental effort to calculate.
The SFO's own annual reports have, in fact, been nothing more than an open-invitation to criminals; for these glossy brochures clearly advertise the alarming fact that if you commit a serious fraud in Britain, the chances of being held fully to account, have been effectively-zero.
Even the briefest examination of the quantifiable evidence, reveals that the 'Serious Fraud Office,' has been an abject failure, whilst the organization's impressive-sounding 'mission statement,' could have come straight out of George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four.'
In the light of all these facts, what exactly did he mean, when Chief Secretary to the UK Treasury, Danny Alexander MP (b. 1972), said yesterday (apparently, fully-awake, sober and in all seriousness) that he was delighted to hear that the SFO will be launching an investigation of the 'rate-fixing' scandal?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18742140
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| 'Our aim is to protect society from extensive, deliberate criminal deception which could threaten public confidence in the financial system. We investigate fraud and corruption that requires our investigative expertise and special powers to obtain and assess evidence to successfully prosecute fraudsters, freeze assets and compensate victims.' |
Even the briefest examination of the quantifiable evidence, reveals that the 'Serious Fraud Office,' has been an abject failure, whilst the organization's impressive-sounding 'mission statement,' could have come straight out of George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four.'
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| Danny Alexander MP |
In the light of all these facts, what exactly did he mean, when Chief Secretary to the UK Treasury, Danny Alexander MP (b. 1972), said yesterday (apparently, fully-awake, sober and in all seriousness) that he was delighted to hear that the SFO will be launching an investigation of the 'rate-fixing' scandal?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18742140
David Brear (copyright 2012)
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