BL Magazine

Finance
Financial crime
gets personal
Cyber theft may make all the front pages,
but financial crime goes a lot deeper and
much of it has a very human element
Words: Dave Waller
IN FEBRUARY 2015, Russian hackers stole
£650 million from banks across the globe.
It was dubbed ‘the world’s biggest bank
raid’, which took two years to orchestrate
and happened entirely in cyber space. As
such, it’s a breathtaking example of what
financial crime is all about in this modern,
connected age. Right?
Well, maybe not. Cyber thefts may grab
the headlines, but they haven’t completely
taken over the financial crime scene –
they’ve just given forensic teams a whole
new area to dust for fingerprints. More
‘traditional’ financial crime – everything
from money laundering and the proceeds
of crime and drug trafficking, to fraud
and corruption and terrorism – is still
a massive concern on a global scale.
The latter came under particular
scrutiny in November, after the terrorist
atrocities in Paris. “Following the attacks,
people are asking questions around where
these terrorists buy weapons,” says Barry
Faudemer, Director of Enforcement at
the Jersey Financial Services Commission.
“The hunt is on for how that was financed.
And I can’t see financial crime being shifted
off the top of the agenda for a while yet.”
Money laundering remains perhaps the
main concern for the Channel Islands.
While most people in the islands’ finance
industries aren’t robbing banks themselves,
they may still come into contact with
proceeds from criminal activities, especially
as the tracks are increasingly well hidden.
That said, every year one or two people
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