Transferring and hiding proceeds of any crime to evade criminal tribunals is against the law in the UK and it will be the object of a confiscation order under the Criminal Justice Act 1988, Criminal Justice (International Co Operation) Act 1990 and Drug Trafficking Act 1994 ( 2010, Nawaz et al 2002). Failing to divulge information or misgivings about transactions that concern money laundering is in breach of the law under the Drug Trafficking Offences Act and Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provision) Act.
In the USA the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOA) of 2002 has implemented a set of domestic company procedures planned to guarantee precise financial disclosures for all companies and the company executives must endorse that they are “responsible for establishing and maintaining ” and “have designed such internal controls to ensure that material information relating to the and its is made known to such officers by others within those entities, particularly during the period in which the periodic reports are being prepared” (Department of the Treasury 2010). The SOA has 11 sections, that vary from extra company management tasks to various severe penal penalties for contraventions of the act and requires the (SEC) to enforce these sections (Department of the Treasury 2010). The penalties include long jail terms and have been enforced many times in many well known cases. The Financial Crimes Enforcement network of the US Department of the Treasury (FinCEN) and the Treasury Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes (TFFC) provide a network course of action calculated to assist in a partnership of information between US agencies with mutual investigating aims such as the FBI and the SEC and these investigative agencies also have vast powers due to the Patriot Act ( US Department of the Treasury 2010). The Act, with respect to anything that may be possibly be a threat to the USA and this includes financial threats, radically eliminated many limitations on all US law enforcement agencies' capacity to investigate telephone interactions, e-mail exchanges, medical records, financial records, and many other records in the USA. Those who oppose the Patriot Act criticize its permission of search through which US police and FBI can search a persons home or business with no consent or even awareness of the search by the owner or resident ( US Department of the Treasury 2010). Opponents also criticize the Patriot Act as it can allow the FBI to investigate financial records, e-mail and telephone records without a court order, and it allows extended entrance of US law enforcement agencies to all financial business transactions and even library records.
The problem about all the UK laws is the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is supposed to implement all the laws concerning fraud of 30 billion pounds per year but is under manned, lacking resources and lacking in sufficient power to enforce the laws ( 2010). The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is also supposed to enforce the financial crime laws but has a very poor history of controlling crime and enforcing the laws and the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has had all the functions of bank regulation removed from their control and the FSA now has been described as only having been left with the rear end of the previous FSA agency ( 2010, Nawaz et al 2002). There is no proper and logical and ordered crime policy in the UK as the Department of Works and Pensions are being employed to catch diminutive benefit crooks and they should be catching huge million and billion pound frauds ( 2010). The Revenue and Customs Prosecution Office has been sent over to the Crown Prosecution Service and is still in a less than integrated form thus causing even more problems for prosecuting criminals ( 2010). There is also an urgent need for thousands of properly trained financial persons inside and outside the disconnected police forces that are presently operating in the UK. SOCA, the UK police arm set up to fight organised crime is not the arm that should be used to fight financial crime and a dedicated coordinated financial enforcement arm must be implemented that uses all the different inter- agency departments resources to fight financial crime efficiently and this will only take proper organisation to achieve results immediately ( 2010, Nawaz et al 2002). Raphael states the UK Fraud Advisory panel has advised that all the numerous failures in the present UK system should be examined and rectified before one more step be taken anywhere.
In conclusion, there must be a serious uniform response from all the UK organisations mentioned above to financial crime as the amounts involved are astronomical. Short term fixes such as plea bargains and large fines for financial crimes that are being used in the UK now are not the answer for the 30 billion pounds a year crimes taking place and the laws must create enough of a deterrent effect to stop financial crime and the laws must be implemented to the full extent and that is not the case now ( 2010, Nawaz et al 2002). Financial theft and fraud are crimes and civil law violations and should be treated as such. Interagency rivalries in the UK must cease forthwith and there must be an integrated policy that causes fear amongst those about to commit financial crime and they must know if caught they will face loss of reputation, seizure of all assets and prosecution and long prison sentences without plea bargains and the option of fines as is the deplorable case in the UK now.
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