The souped-up Serious Fraud Office aims to manage fewer cases, better and faster.Like homicides, serious fraud investigations require a “lot of resources for a very intense period to make progress”, chief executive Adam Feely told a
The souped-up Serious Fraud Office aims to manage fewer cases, better and faster.
Like homicides, serious fraud investigations require a “lot of resources for a very intense period to make progress”, chief executive Adam Feely told a parliamentary select committee yesterday.
If not, then cases ran the risk of backlogging and becoming stagnant.
Mr Feely hopes to cut the turnaround time for cases such as the Capital + Merchant investigation down to six to nine months.
Strategy 2010: aggression, technology, networking
In terms of wider strategy, the SFO will move towards more aggressive investigation of suspected fraud, rather than waiting for evidence of crimes to emerge.
“People may be required to answer questions from the SFO and provide documents, which may then trigger sufficient evidence to launch a full investigation.”
The agency will also seek out advanced technology to help detect and investigate crimes.
“Historically we have been relatively slow to identify the potential for using technology and names which may trigger alerts, and transactions which may trigger alerts,” Mr Feely said.
He was hopeful that specialist software will help staff manage the sheer volume of digital evidence associated with a modern fraud investigation.
As an example, a case currently under investigation will require eight million emails on a single computer hard-drive to be processed by staff.
However, the level of sophistication that would be needed to digitally process such evidence was “quite high and it’s fair to say we don’t have that yet”.
The SFO has budgeted $240,000 for a software upgrade this year, focused on forensic analysis tools, litigation support and case presentation.
A third area of focus will be increased networking and information sharing between agencies, including with the new Financial Markets Authority.
The agency will be be careful to avoid “fishing expeditions” that could undermine investor confidence.
