Olympus Camera: A cautionary story for potential whistleblowers...



Moments after the whistle is blown????


Some tips and useful links for potential whistleblowers and whistleblowees!

This link ( The Independent: Friday 21 October 2011 ) is to an article that should be read by any potential whistleblower before they act.

If you accept the facts and the timeline as reported as accurate, (N.B. There are always two sides to any story and we are not at the end yet of this saga) then the point I would like to make is don't expect the recipient of "the bad news" to be grateful.

The whistleblower’s firm might indeed adopt the policy of shooting the messenger and attempting to explain away the incident as a cultural or personality clash.

What is worse, in my experience, is the fact that the regulators and or law enforcement won’t “ride to your rescue” and they may well make your position utterly untenable.

In all too many cases, as in this current affair, it is not until the whistleblower has ”kicked” the authorities in different countries that they will act.

As I’ve been involved in a number of whistleblowing events, before you act, please remember that:

1. You should seek legal / specialist advice ASAP.

2. Your professional circumstances may well change very fast.

3. Your family and friends might be the ones who bear the brunt of any comeback.

4. In extreme circumstances, your personal safety might be at risk.

5. Where possible, keep written evidence of what you believe has been going on.

6. Anything you do may well end up taking far longer to resolve, sometimes in terms of years, for the situation to be resolved.

Instead of the usual links to other related stories, you will find below some links to websites that

Now some quick tips for firms (or the whistleblowees) :


1. Make sure that your staff have access to effective, simple and (in the beginning) anonomised whistleblowing systems and procedures

2. Don’t shoot the messengers, who bring you an inconvenient truth, they may be the people who are actually trying to help save the long term future of the company.

3. Resist the siren calls of the advisors who recommend that you target the informer rather than fixing the issue.

4. In my view, serious incidents of any kind are almost inevitable in the current tough business environment. But just like politicians, it is not the issue itself that kills you but any attempt to cover it up!

Your comments are, as always welcome.

Public Concern At Work: Contact Details

The Financial Services Authority Whistleblowing Section of the website

Direct Gov Website on whistleblowing

US SEC Adopts Rules to Establish Whistleblower Program

US SEC Office of the Whistleblower Website

Related articles

• SEC Whistleblower Tips: A Sneak Peek (blogs.wsj.com)

Olympus Cameras (Background):

This article from the Daily Telegraph, A quick overview (with some interesting links) sets out both where the Olympus Cameras story was at the start of this month, what the UK connection is to this and just how complex this could get.

Enjoy,

Olympus Cameras 2



The camera never lies 2. (Image via Wikipedia)

I’ve written on this blog before on this interesting story of the former UK CEO of Japan’s Olympus Cameras and this $1 billion of obscure (suspicious?) payments. Well Reuters (please see attached story) has just reported that the Serious Fraud Office has launched an investigation (not confirmed by SFO at the time of writing) into what has been going on. Given that this story will probably run and covers whistleblowing, ethics, internal controls, different cultures and what POCA might consider “criminal property”, I’ll be following this story, plus background in more detail on this over the coming days.

Please feel free to comment / feedback,

Related articles

• Olympus Accounting Facing Formal Probe From U.K. Prosecutors (businessweek.com)
• Olympus used acquisitions, deal fee to hide losses (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• SFO looks into Olympus' $687m 'advisory fees' during Gyrus deal (telegraph.co.uk)
• Olympus appoints high court judge to head 'improper payments' probe panel (telegraph.co.uk)
• Olympus vice-president sacked (techradar.com)
• Clash of corporate cultures costs British chief of Olympus his job (guardian.co.uk)

Are UK AML laws & regulations removing enought of the proceeds of crime?

Image via Wikipedia

Is the Colombian president speaking truth to power?

For those of you who remember the introduction of the draconian AML laws and regs in the early part of this century, you will recall that among the reasons given for such radical changes in the practice of AML was the stated target of allowing the Government to remove the proceeds of crime (and therefore the motivation for lots of crime) from the equation.

IMHO, not enough cash and assets are being siezed by the UK's authorities but those changes do allow government to police the compliant.

However, the President of Colombia, thinks that the USA, UK and EU should be doing more in terms of dealing with the global drug trade, including the possible legalisation of drugs: 

The Observer: Colombia's president calls for governments around the world, to debate legalising certain drugs – inc. cocaine

Now I might not agree with that approach, but I'm certainly open to hear your views.

Related articles

• Juan Manuel Santos: 'It is time to think again about the war on drugs' (guardian.co.uk)
• Colombian president calls for legalisation of marijuana (telegraph.co.uk)

Well done the Derbyshire Police!



Image by i be GINZ via Flickr

What price effective policing!

This kind of sting has been used before, nevertheless it still makes me smile. 

Free beer offer snares suspects

According to one ranking officer from the Derbyshire Police, some of these suspects / brain boxes  were still asking for their "free beer" as they were being booked at the station!

Related articles

• Free beer sting nets suspects (thesun.co.uk)
• Funny old world weird news round up: Criminals nicked in police free beer sting (mirror.co.uk)

Is POCA being used to take the cash out of crime? I fear not...

UK Border official gave away visas for tens of thousands of pounds

The Linked article from today's Telegraph (link above) neatly illustrates a number of points:


1) If POCA was meant to take the cash out of crime, why didn’t the CPS go after the cash in this important and high profile case? (Please see article from the Mail: Prosecution could not prove he took bribes?

2) You can have the best CDD systems in the world, which are absolutely useless if Government issue "correct" but illegally obtained visas

3) IMHO, money launderers are not stupid and they will always go after the weakest link in any chain, even if they are Government officials.

4) The UK's Border Agency simply is not fit for purpose.

Feel free to comment.

Related articles

• 124,000 Migrants 'Lost' By Border Agency (news.sky.com)
• UK Border Agency hit by fresh 'bribes for visas' scandal (telegraph.co.uk)
• Hunt for 19 illegals who were let into the UK by crook at Border Agency (thesun.co.uk)

UK Bribery Act 2010: A useful independant source of information

This is a view of a Corruption Index FYI 

One of the issues for those fighting financial  crime is the location of reputable, independant on certain subjects.

I like to remind my client's  that Transparency International (a global civil society organisation involved in the fight against corruption, Transparency International's Website) exists to help.

The recent publication of  the Bribe Payers Index 2011 is a useful tool for those firms with international clients in the relevant countries, especially the perception rankings of the 19 business sectors listed as engagaing in bribery. 

The press release is here, Press Release: But have a good poke around the site at the same time.

How many firms have checked their Politically Exposed Persons lists to see if there is any overlap? Hmmm.....

Related articles

• Bribery seen as most likely in China, Russia (cbc.ca)
• Survey: China, Russia Seen Most Likely to Bribe (abcnews.go.com)
• Chinese And Russian Firms The 'Most Corrupt' (news.sky.com)

Did the questioning of Suspicious Transactions cost the Olympus CEO his job?

Image via Wikipedia

The Camera Never Lies?

This story will continue to develop but, IMHO, is a useful example of the price (risks?) that effective senior managers, including MLRO's and Nominated Officers, when questioning unusual or suspicious payments.

At first blush, it does appear that the UK's ex-CEO of Olympus Cameras (Mr Michael Woodford), who has been campaigning since being sacked (on October 14) to force the Japanese firm to come clean on $1.3 billion in questionable payments was right.


See details here: Today's story from Reuters

If you are not directly involved, this story has all the classic problems:

1. An outsider (in this case a Brit) questions the logic and reasoning behind an established practice
2. The outsider is right
3. It is a senior management issue that does not want to be resolved
4. Doing the right thing rather than the culturally acceptable thing costs you your job. 

Fair comment?

You be the judge.

Related articles

• Olympus used takeover fees to hide losses (cnn.com)
• Olympus used takeover fees to hide losses (ft.com)
• Olympus admits hiding losses in widening scandal (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Former Olympus chief Michael Woodford 'not safe in Japan' (telegraph.co.uk)
• Olympus chairman says ousted British boss tried to damage the company (guardian.co.uk)
• Olympus Says Used Gyrus Deal to Hide Investment Losses (nytimes.com)
• Clash of corporate cultures costs British chief of Olympus his job (guardian.co.uk)

US Mortgage Fraud: Is that the sound of a stable door being bolted?

FINCEN has it's eyyes on us

You sometimes come across press articles in the strangest of places that add to your general enjoyment of life.

This report from The Cypress Times (FINCEN PROPOSES ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING/SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY REPORTING RULES FOR FANNIE MAE, FREDDIE MAC, FEDERAL HOME LOAN BANKS) outlines FINCEN's proposals to bring Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac into the Mortgage Fraud reporting system.

Given where the 2008 global financial crisis started in the US with some truly ridiculous mortgage products, I can only say, better late than never.

Related articles

• Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Looses $4.4 Billion In 2011 and $4.1 Billion In 2010 (pobeptsworld.wordpress.com)
• THE MYTH OF FANNIE OR FREDDIE ACTUALLY "BUYING" MORTGAGES (In other words...check into CONSIDERATION...these are "contracts" afterall) (timothymccandless.wordpress.com)

Were the Met Police regularly hacking communications by using a suitable interpretation of RIPA?

Image via WikipediaI found this interesting article from The Spectator's Jonathan Jones.

I particularly liked the first two comments from reader's feedback.

Were the police hacking phones too?

I suppose the key questions are:

• What have the Met Police been doing in our name?
• Who has or should have been supervising their activities?
• Should RIPA be reviewed?

I find myself agreeing with the article's conclusion that this story has quite a long way to run.

Related articles

• Guardian: Number of possible phone hacking victims close to 5,800, say police (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
• London's Met Police uses 'blanket tracking system' to intercept, remotely shut down mobile phones (zdnet.com)

Feel safer now?



Image via Wikipedia

Why police criminals when you spy on the compliant?

The evidence that UK has built a society based upon suspicion, distrust and government spying during the period that the  Labour Party and its public "service" clientele last governed the UK continues to emerge.

The report published today by Justice entitled "Freedom from Suspicion.  Surveillance Reform for a Digital Age" supplies both the evidence of widespread disproportionate use of covert surveillance for the most minor of civil issues, a wholly unsatisfactory oversight regime and a clarion call for a sensible review of how the innocuous sounding RIPA Act of 2000 has been used.

I'll return to this report later on, but in the meantime here are some of the most germane points from the Executive Summary of the report:


"• Surveillance is a necessary activity in the fight against serious crime. It is a vital part of our national security. It has saved countless lives and helped convict hundreds of thousands of criminals.

• Unnecessary and excessive surveillance, however, destroys our privacy and blights our freedoms.

• RIPA has not only failed to check a great deal of plainly excessive surveillance by public bodies over the last decade but, in many cases, inadvertently encouraged it. Its poor drafting has allowed
councils to snoop, phone hacking to flourish, privileged conversations to be illegally recorded, and CCTV to spread.   It is also badly out of date.

• RIPA is neither forward-looking nor human rights compliant. Piecemeal amendments are no longer
enough for what is already a piecemeal Act. Root-and-branch reform of the law on surveillance is needed to provide freedom from unreasonable suspicion, and put in place truly effective safeguards against the abuse of what are necessary powers.


• This report, therefore, outlines a series of recommendations to serve as the basis for a draft Surveillance Reform Bill. "

Here is the link to the report: JUSTICE-Freedom from Suspicion .Surveillance Reform for a Digital Age

Related articles

• Shock at scale of legal snooping as 3 million cases are revealed (independent.co.uk)
• Law against phone hacking is not working, says civil liberties group (guardian.co.uk)
• Strip Searches, RIPA and Unnecessary Force (bigbrotherwatch.org.uk)

Police, Aircraft, Action! Well done those Brazilians!

Image via Wikipedia

Quite by accident, this blog seems to be developing something of a flying theme.

This is just a quick well done to the work of Brazilian Federal Police in Ribeirão Preto.  Their assertive police style leads to a Hollywood type intervention in the pursuit of five drug smugglers attempting to flee in a small private plane.

So enjoy the video clip, (it's at the bottom of the article). 

In the meantime:

"Batteries to power, engage thrusters, Ramming Speed!"

Read more:   http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2056874/Brazilian-police-ram-moving-plane-arrest-drug-smugglers.html#ixzz1cdKyf0RR

Into the wild blue yonder (never to return)

On the other hand, I may be worrying a bit too much about Police Forces being able to utilise modern technology to spy on their own citizens.  

The loss of the £13,000 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (following a close encounter with the River Mersey) and the decision to not to replace it may mark a return to common sense.  Detials from the Daily Mail:

Police Drone Lost At Sea!

To be fair, the Merseyside Police has had problems with the liscensing of this "eye in the sky"  even when it helped nab suspects on the run (as this extract from the Daily Telegraph from last year demonstrates).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/7248756/Eye-in-the-sky-arrest-of-a-teenage-thief-could-land-police-in-court.html

Any force thinking about purchasing a UAV might like to at least consider one the advice given in one of the less well known verses of the US Air Force Song:

"Off we go into the wild sky yonder,
Keep the wings level and true;
If you'd live to be a grey-haired wonder
Keep the nose out of the blue! (Out of the blue, boy!)"



Related articles

• Car theft suspect tracked by drone (autonetinsurance.co.uk)

Can't account for the cash? You can still be convicted....

Image by ROSS HONG KONG via FlickrA story from Bristol in which a pair of non-UK nationals could be deported, if the UK is allowed to under the Human Rights Act!

The Met continue their war against whom precisely??



Image via Wikipedia

Thomas Paine


"The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes." Thomas Paine


Now the Met have one of the most dangerous and difficult jobs to do in the UK. But I am beginning to be very concerned that they are not subject to effective oversight that is in line with the UK's constitutional approach to an individuals freedom, encapsulated in the modern phrase of ”Civil Liberty".

You might argue, from a Public Relations point of view, that there general approach owes more to the comedy stylings of the Keystone Cops.

If the secret to good comedy is timing, one wanders whether the Met are comedy geniuses, idiot savants or just genuinely building up a track record of violating civil liberties by covert means?

Today's example of imperilling civil liberties comes from Daily Mail, which states that:

"Law-abiding citizens could be under surveillance via their mobile phones as Met police introduce a new phone-tracking technology, it was revealed today.

Police can now shut off phones remotely, listen in on conversations and gather data about users in a targeted area - even innocent members of the public."

Please follow this link for full details: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2055543/Whos-listening-Met-police-track-thousands-mobiles-using-covert-surveillance-system.html#ixzz1cML0hACO

Similar questions to yesterday's post applies.

What are your thoughts on this?

Related articles

• UK Met police using surveillance system to monitor mobile phone (textually.org)
• UK Police Buy Covert Cellphone Surveillance System (yro.slashdot.org)
• Met police using surveillance system to monitor mobile phones (guardian.co.uk)

No Oversight Please! We Are the Met Police

According to the story in today's Sunday Telegraph, the UK's Metropolitan Police has had the operational capability to eavesdrop on mobile (or Cell) telephone conversations since 1997 using a number of fixed wing aircraft, the very existence of which may have been deliberately hidden from the public or their representatives.

A Cessna F04

The trouble appears to be that the people who paid for it and were subject to it did not have a clue that this was happening, until today that is.

Let me quote from the article directly:

"However members of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), which scrutinises the force's spending said they had never been told of the existence of the aircraft.

According to Civil Aviation Authority records, the aircraft is registered to a firm called Nor Leasing.

There is no trace of the firm on any other official record and its business address registered with the CAA is actually a branch of Mail Boxes Etc, which offers a virtual office services and mail forwarding, in Surbiton, south-west London. "

Now this story breaks after recent allegations that an undercover Met Officer used his false name, under oath, during the trial of campaigning / activist groups who the Police (Politicians?) deem to be a potential threat to public order.


Now operationally, as in any totalitarian state, such an intelligence gathering capability when coupled with a flagrant disregard for the rule of law. is very, very useful.  But are such activities supervised or authorised outside of the cosy world of the Met Police?

I am begining to be very concerned that rather than actively policing the bad guys, the Met may have been policing any one who did not agree with  the last Labour Government.  E.G. Damian Green MP, the Policing of the Pro-Tibetan campaigners, any one that did not agree with the Iraq war etc etc.

So here are some questions I think that the MPA might light to ask, given that they appear to be some 14 years behind what the met Police have been upto:

• Who authorised the payment and running of these assets?
• When did they do this?
• What was the case for doing this?
• Why are they covert and not subject to scrutiny by the MPA or vetted sub-committee?
• Who ran these assets?
• What have they been doing?
• Who oversaw the operations and approved them?
• Did they breach the Data Protection Act?
• Have these operations been subject to Judicial oversight?
• Have they been subject to Political oversight?

Not good boys, not good at all.

Related articles

• Met chief says officers' use of fake identities in court was not illegal (guardian.co.uk)
• Undercover policing report delayed (mirror.co.uk)
• Undercover police inquiry delayed after new allegations (guardian.co.uk)
• Former police spy urges public inquiry into undercover operations (guardian.co.uk)
• You: Police spies unit 'crossed the line', says Lord MacDonald (guardian.co.uk)

The Remote Card Scanning Threat Evolves

Image via WikipediaFor those of us who have cautioned against complacency in the field of card payment robustness, this skimming story from the Daily Mail would appear to add grist to the mill.

Still, its great to see the European Union's free market in action!

The Abuse of the Police National Computer: for the benefit of UK regulated companies?

Image via WikipediaBy going back to 2005. The Guardian has highlighted an example of the abuse of police national computer for profit by a policeman.  The case was thrown out by a judge and thus it never came before a jury.

I wonder if this issue fits into the FSA's crime prevention strategy?  IMHO, it certainly should ...

An excellent video guide to the new EU Cookie law.

Image by erjkprunczyk via FlickrThis new regulation has been effective in the UK since 26th May 2011.
The link is to a cracking video from Silktide.com has been posted on YouTube. I urge you to invest 2 ½ minutes of your life and making a note to follow up this story as it develops.

All the best

A farewell to SOCA?

Image via WikipediaThis article from the Mail on Sunday suggests that the organisational consequences of SOCA's imminent demise might last many years.
I suspect that the paper has a point.