Inequality, Crime and the Banks: A talk by former Scotland Yard Fraud Squad Officer Rowan Bosworth-Davis

For those of you who don’t know him, Rowan Bosworth-Davis is a former Scotland Yard Fraud Officer.

He is also one of the country’s authorities on Money Laundering and financial fraud.  I am re-reading one of his classic works, “Money Laundering – A practical guide…”

It should be a great talk. I will try to be there.

http://robbingbanks.eventbrite.co.uk/#

27 thoughts on “Inequality, Crime and the Banks: A talk by former Scotland Yard Fraud Squad Officer Rowan Bosworth-Davis”

  1. “And how simply enforcing the law can stop it”

    oh, dear. It makes Britain look more like Greece by the day.

    Were it criminal, there would be people in jail. This is a social tragedy of the first order.

    1. Hello Gemma,

      The parliamentarians just love passing laws. It makes them seem as if they care. And yet they also make sure even the laws we do have are wholly inneffective. Most of the finanical laws are simply not enforced, not policed, made so that no one can bring action under them.

      It is a farce. Or would be if it were not so corrupt.

  2. This is slightly off comment.

    We know banks and the financial shamans in their hubris are free loading wheeler dealers beyond redemption. For damn near five years now we have daily exposures of their shenanigans either domestic or global. through blogs like David’s and the material referenced, these doctrines have developed from shock to the shrug of the expected.

    So thick and fast do they come their cause is liquefied and their effects diluted in order to hide the real toxicity of their soup. With the effect, perhaps by design, we are probably all suffering from corruption fatigue. But, and this is the point – most of us as commentators, while we rage against the corruption have in reality very little involvement and even less influence at the level these malpractices take place.

    Perhaps our strategy would be more effective if we lowered our sights and went for the issues that directly and in real terms chipped away at the abuses practised by these magnates on the little men.

    Issues such as Joe Smiths overdraft being charged at circa 20% interest when the banks are getting the money for nothing.

    OR government wise – why the rich have a tax ceiling of 45% while the working poor in the UK are taxed at 85%?

    Just a thought – but it could be the straw that breaks the poxed camels back.

    1. John and David, as one of the smallish people (with a 30 year old world renown business £1,000,000 turnover) who suffered greatly at the hands of the evil banks and other professionals, the following comment/link by Daniel on bitcoin.org is interesting.

      We saw it all – overdraft halved overnight. We were charged £100,000 “penalty” to reinstate an account which a bank suspended illegally. Then they refused to accept our repayment of the full loan amount, plus the “penalty” when we wanted out! Why? Because we had a very valuable asset (worth 10 times the amount of the loan) which they wanted to keep on their books.

      Another bank when we took them to court simply lied, using technicalities and perjury to stretch out the court case and never once answered the claim against them.

      These were all perpetrated by different banks. There were more, many more outrageous ploys and dirty tricks that we had to deal with time and time again.

      We started with nothing and a small loan (at the time when banks were ok guys) and grew our business over 30 years. How can other inspired people with all sorts of wonderful ideas ever get started bogged down in this toxic environment where we all exist. There must be another way. We must take the banks power away by bypassing them.

      I would be interested to hear your comments on this alternative system (bitcom.org). Is this the way to take power away from these monsters in order to regain control of our own destiny?

      1. Kate -It is difficult to give you a concise reply, though having experienced a similar situation I empathise fully with your dilemma and the techniques of banks, and in my case governments, to employ the tactics of legalised attrition.

        I learned two lessons – the first is to create a reserve position. Register a new company with a different registered office and a bank account with a different bank (I know there’s little difference between the main banks but there are others out there like the Airdrie bank which hold to the old morals of banking – there’s another called “Investos” that’s a guess since I can’t recall the exact name) Once these are in place start shadowing your business by making the new company your buying or selling agent.(Without knowing your product and set up its impossible to be precise, but I think you’ll get the gist of what I’m outlining) The one thing you do not do, is introduce borrowing to the ‘new’ company. In the meantime for the existing company you draw up a new business plan incorporating the perceived ‘advantages’ of the move. This is purely to sidetrack your existing bank, so the name of the other company involved is not disclosed.

        This gets a bit complicated for a comment on a Blog – I’m sure if you contact David direct, he will be able to give you my email address and it can be taken from there if you’re interested.

        However I am surprised by the example you have given – provided you were not cutting the liability from some other pot in the same bank – but for them to hold onto an asset when they’re not exposed by either contract nor liability is morally repugnant but unfortunately not illegal until such time as you can break the contract with them and by doing so remove all risk from them.

        As for Bitcoin – I don’t know enough about it – but for now its pretty embryonic and I would suspect too fragile and not well enough understood in the commercial world for it to be introduced at the present for the particular circumstance you are presently experiencing.

        By the way – the offer of contact has no strings attached.

  3. Long time since I was a cop. It will be interesting to see what Rowan has to say. Fraud prosecutions were tough 30 years back – we got a few bank managers hooked on gambling on the 3.30 p.m. and the odd Ponzi (Barlow-Clowes). We worked with little training or accounting knowledge and were usually tipped-off by insiders. There were plenty of doors I was told to back off from, something that rarely happened in other areas of policing. I would say today that each instance of ppi and interest rate swaps is a crime and the higher end scams must be as bad. It seems we are tossed the odd rogue trader as a sop. Varieties of the Delaware defence are everywhere making sure much of what a cop would want a jury to decide inadmissible. I can think of many ways the establishment kept our boot from certain doors all those years ago and suspect crime figures (and suppressing them) is another today. It’s impossible as a citizen to understand why police are kept at bay and I hope to find some answers in what Rowan has to say.

  4. “and he warns:

    ‘We stand on the verge of one of the bleakest periods in human history, when the bright lights of civilizations will blink out and we will descend for decades, if not centuries, into barbarity. The elites, who successfully convinced us that we no longer possessed the capacity to understand the revealed truths presented before us or to fight back against the chaos caused by economic and environmental catastrophe, will use their resources to create privileged little islands where they will have access to security and goods denied to the rest of us.’ (p. 197)”

    http://medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2012/713-the-illusion-of-democracy.html

      1. Krakatau proof……. I love it Stevie!…………. If I open up a new line of bank vaults that will be their name.

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