Reported by: Helen Parry Senior Regulatory Intelligence Expert / Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence

The United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) confiscation announcement relating to investment adviser Richard Faithfull, and the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announcement concerning David Ames, highlight examples of successful convictions in cases concerning overseas transnational investment fraud.

A close examination of the cases, however, has revealed some unexpected connections between the protagonists involved in the various fraudulent investment schemes, which ranged across many jurisdictions and modi operandi — from classic boiler room securities fraud to investment property and litigation funding investment fraud.

Faithfull was found guilty, as part of a transnational crime group, of having laundered the proceeds of at least seven professionally run overseas investment frauds. He had been charged and prosecuted by the FCA and was sentenced to five years and 10 months imprisonment.

The FCA said Faithfull had been able to use knowledge gained when working in the regulated sector as an investment adviser to help the fraudsters continue to defraud victims by paying fictional “dividends” from bank accounts controlled by him to make it look as though the underlying investments were generating returns. It also said that to avoid detection he had relocated to Ukraine, where he had lived a life of luxury while he continued his criminal activities, enlisting the assistance of local criminal groups abroad.

Read full report: https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/investigation-fraud-and-risk/uk-law-enforcement-transnational-crime/