Category Archives: Fraud

Happy holidays!

Well hello everyone – I’m back.  And while I was away on my hols, I did wonder whether taking time off in the summer was the responsible thing to do.  As long ago as 1831, astronomer and statistician Adolphe Quetelet … Continue reading

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A most tempting offer

The name of my company is the result of a family joke: my father observed one day that I was always thinking about crime.  I wasn’t sure I’d be allowed to have the name but I was, and it’s memorable … Continue reading

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Keep washing that money

This blog – much like its author – veers wildly between buoyancy and doom, and this week it’s the latter.  Sorry about that.  And it’s about the pestilence.  Sorry about that too.  But there’s no lock-down for criminality and I … Continue reading

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The topic will be sin and that’s what I’m ag’in

At the beginning of April 2020 the UK’s National Crime Agency published its “National Strategic Assessment of Serious and Organised Crime 2020”.  Of course, much of this report looks at the damage being done by criminals but – as instructed … Continue reading

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Free download of financial crime novel

Some of you may know that my obsession with financial crime spreads into my personal life, and that my hobby is writing historical financial crime novels.  My first series is narrated by a magistrates’ constable in London in the 1820s, … Continue reading

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Planes and pandemics

One of the challenges of AML work is keeping up with the endless adaptability and imagination of criminals.  Unshackled by moral considerations, or by the need to report to risk committees or by the requirement to comply with legislation (quite … Continue reading

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From little acorns

Apologies for the confusion at the start of my blog post on 4 September: I was not back at all, but actually watching elephants swimming in Botswana.  I wrote a couple of posts in advance, to cover my absence, and … Continue reading

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Words speaking louder than actions

Now I know it’s important to Think Big – to have goals and targets and ambition.  But you can take it too far.  And I rather think that in their recent “Economic Crime Plan 2019-2022” the joint forces of HMG … Continue reading

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Money launder-gig

I’m always surprised – although I try not to show it – when people ask me how money laundering actually works, as there is an almost infinite number of ways in which criminals can move their money around.  Invent a … Continue reading

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Just do the math

I am currently reading “How Not to Be Wrong” by American mathematician Jordan Ellenberg.  Not that I am wrong very often, of course, but it pays to protect one’s elevated position.  In truth, I scraped by in my maths A-level, … Continue reading

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