Outstanding Manager or Director – Simon York, Fraud Investigation Service, HMRC
Simon York is the director of the Fraud Investigation Service (FIS) and played a pivotal role in its creation three years ago. In 2018-19 alone, the FIS helped convict more than 640 fraudsters and has secured around £5 billion for public services. Under Simon’s leadership, the FIS have taken on additional responsibility for the department’s anti-money laundering supervision team, which has resulted in a 70% increase in interventions in the sectors that HMRC supervises. As part of the Government’s Autumn Budget in 2017, Simon was instrumental in helping design and implement a package of measures aimed at tackling those who facilitate tax crime. On top of all this, Simon is forward-thinking and a champion of diversity and inclusion. In his role he has worked to create a more inclusive culture by personally driving programmes to tackle bullying, harassment and other unacceptable behaviours. Simon mentors BAME colleagues and champions gender equality.
Outstanding Team – The Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit
Formed in 2002 as a partnership between the City of London Police and the Metropolitan Police, the Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU) tackles organised crime groups responsible for financial fraud and scams. The DCPCU is fully sponsored by the banking industry and since its inception it has saved the industry an estimated £540 million. The success of the unit is down to a collaboration with a cross section of its membership. For example, the team is made up of a variety of roles including operational police officers, Metropolitan Police researchers and analysts and UK Finance staff. The success of the unit is such that last year the unit prevented around £94.5 million of fraud, secured 48 convictions and disrupted 11 organised crime groups.
Outstanding Consultant – Graydon Business Intelligence Unit – Graydon UK
Graydon’s Business Intelligence Unit is responsible for investigating and detecting potentially fraudulent and suspect companies who have applied for credit on goods with Graydon customers. The unit was established more than 20 years ago and is led by Graydon’s head of intelligence Alan Norton. At a time when organisations are increasingly targeted by fraud, the team provides a crucial service to Graydon clients across the UK. The unit’s work was recognised in the Chartered Institute of Credit Management Awards in 2018. Each year, the work load of the unit is increasing. In the last five years the average value of fraudulent transactions identified and investigated by Graydon has soared by 58%.
Outstanding Customer Service Initiative – Cyber and Economic Crime Awareness Service, Greater Manchester Police
“We are extremely proud that our efforts to protect and support our victims of fraud within the Greater Manchester community have been recognised by such independent experts in the field of economic crime”
Graham Atherton, Manager, Cyber and Economic Crime Awareness Service, GMP
The Cyber and Economic Crime Awareness Service (CECAS) was launched by Greater Manchester Police in 2017 and aimed to raise awareness of fraud and the impact it has on victims. CECAS was created due to the large numbers of fraud and cybercrime victims being recorded nationally, but not locally, so were hidden from usual crime recording standards. The service works closely with Action Fraud, EVCVU, the banking sector and third-party support agencies to provide advice and support to vulnerable victims of fraud as well as those identified as potential future victims. So far, 2,150 victims have been supported through CECAS. There has only been two CECAS victims that have been secondary victims of fraud.
Outstanding Training Initiative – James Jenkin, Serious Fraud Office
“Having a number of finalists in contrasting disciplines has been a real positive for the SFO and I am beyond thrilled to have won the award for Outstanding Training Initiative. I have had immeasurable support from across the SFO but above all I would like to thank the Trainee Investigators themselves for recognising and seizing the opportunity presented by this initiative.
James Jenkin, Investigator Development & Assessment Manager, Serious Fraud Office
I know I speak for all the finalists from the SFO when I say that the integrity and credibility of the awards you and your team have created is very impressive and I am sure they will become established as the benchmark for recognising efforts made to tackle economic crime.”
James Jenkin is an investigator development and assessment manager (IDAM) for the Serious Fraud Office. In his role, James designed and implemented a trainee programme to produce high calibre investigators. James’ training programme is so successful that last year there were nearly 1,500 applicants for 24 places. James has created a training programme which combines coursework and practical experience over a period of 14 to 18 months. In the last three years the course has produced 60 high calibre investigators, which has closed the skills gap and helped redefine the role of a junior investigator. The Serious Fraud Office expects that by mid-2020 the investigation capability gap will have been eliminated as a result of the training programme.
Outstanding New Product – The Paybase Risk Suite – Paybase
“We’re delighted to have won the Outstanding New Product Award for our Risk Suite! With an ambitious mission of empowering businesses to design the economies of tomorrow, it’s great to be recognised for our efforts to safeguard the integrity of those businesses’ and their end-users. Thanks again to TECAs – we can’t wait to see how this award propels us as we move into the European market next year.”
Jessy Conflon – Head of Growth
The Paybase Risk Suite is a three-pillared financial crime prevention framework, combining a risk engine, rules engine and onboarding engine. The risk engine manages the financial crime risk, which scores risks on a number of measures including geography and IP clusters. The rules engine is the flagship feature of the Paybase platform. Configured by the compliance team, the Paybase rules engine is used to detect and prevent financial crime based on the risk assessment of each client. The onboarding engine is a customer due diligence processor (CDD). Through a tiered system, Paybase only requests a level of user information that matches the level of risk associated with that user. The Paybase Risk Suite is not solely addressing the demand of the platform economy, but the cryptocurrency is also benefiting from the CDD processor. Paybase’s approach to due diligence can request different levels of information for different user types, ensuring ultimate safety without being unnecessarily overhanded upon lower-value users.
Outstanding Partnership – Hertfordshire Shared Anti-Fraud Service
The Hertfordshire Shared Anti-Fraud Service (SAFS) deals with the growing threat of fraud to local government. Set up in 2015, the SAFS utilises communities and local government funding to increase effectiveness in preventing and detecting fraud. The partnership includes seven councils in the county and provides contracted services to a number of social housing providers. The SAFS team members are all fully accredited and trained. The service has received 4,000 fraud referrals in the last four years and the service has successfully investigated more than 1,500 individual cases, been responsible for 60 prosecutions and recovered more than 90 social homes.
Outstanding Investigator – DC Adele Shallcross, Avon and Somerset Constabulary
“I would like to thank those who voted for me. I am completely overwhelmed by winning such an award and never thought for one minute that I would make the final, let alone win the category. Whilst the award is an individual award, I would not have been able to achieve such a result without the support of my colleagues and team.”
DC Adele Shallcross, Avon and Somerset Constabulary
Detective Constable Adele Shallcross is a fraud investigator with Avon and Somerset Constabulary. DC Shallcross once led a £7m investment fraud investigation. During which, DC Shallcross had to go to considerable efforts and engage experts in order to establish the truth behind the investment fraud, which resulted in a conviction. At the conclusion of the trial, a confiscation order for £1.94 million was made, which enabled the victims to receive some compensation. This would not have been possible without DC Shallcross’ efforts. The investigation produced thousands of pages of exhibits and without the volume of effort put in by DC Shallcross over a three year period it would have been difficult for a jury to understand. DC Shallcross undertook work of such a complexity that it would normally be dealt with by a team of investigators rather than an individual.
Outstanding Young Professional – Dave Laramy, Capital One UK
Dave Laramy is the senior director of fraud and operational insight at Capital One UK and has direct responsibility for external and internal fraud. Dave also has responsibility for UK operational insight, which includes demand forecasting for all customer contact centres and back office activities, as well as servicing insight, business cases and benefits tracking for customer operations. Dave has been on the advisory board of Cifas since May 2016 and was the lead board member for the overhaul of the Cifas rules. Starting on the Barclays graduate scheme in 2002, over the course of his career Dave has led fraud strategy, analytics, operations and project teams for multiple top-tier banks.
Outstanding Female Professional – Claire Jenkins FCCA, Integrity and Enforcement Unit, Companies House
“I am delighted to have been recognised in such prestigious awards for the work that I do in countering fraud and economic crime”
Claire Jenkins FCCA, Forensic Accountant, Integrity & Enforcement Unit, Companies House
Claire Jenkins joined Companies House in 2013, where she was responsible for considering non-compliant and dubious accounts alongside her accounting role. More recently, Claire’s role has developed into a forensic accountant. Claire is involved in the Technical Advisory and Forensic Knowledge Network – a cross-government network created to share and improve forensic knowledge. Claire is also the vice-chairman of the Association of Law Enforcement Forensic Accountants. This year Claire was invited to speak at the ACCA’s 9th international public sector conference on the subject of forensic accountancy. Claire’s grit and determination led her to have a role in a ground-breaking data pilot, bringing together Companies House and HMRC. The results from the counter fraud pilot included £100 million of fraudulent tax abuse and 32,000 companies involved in improper accounting practice. This all helped to improve the integrity of the public register of public accounts.
Outstanding Male Professional – Russell Chinn, Metropolitan Police, DCPCU
Russell Chinn is a detective sergeant with the Metropolitan Police, serving on the dedicated Card Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU). Russell has spent thirty years in policing, and the last seven of them with the DCPCU. In his role, Russell manages one of four operational teams of detective customers and is responsible for driving and delivering operational performance. Russell recently collaborated with major banks whose ATMs were being targeted nationwide by organised crime groups. Russell’s quick and proactive approach meant the team were able to identify target vehicles, track and plot them geographically via Automatic Number Plate Recording data and overlay this with live time ATM attack data. This resulted in the perpetrators being caught and an organised crime group being disrupted.
Outstanding Prevention Initiative – Santander UK, APP Scam Prevention
Santander UK’s ‘Attention, Awareness and Action’ principle is leading the way in their commitment to protect customers from fraud. The team worked with a behavioural psychologist to help work out how to bring attention and awareness to customers. They broke the process down into four sections for customers. The first involved the customer being shown the bank name related to the sort code details they’d entered to pay, to show where the money is going. The second section was focused on encouraging customers to consider sending the money at a later time so they had time to change their mind. The third was to provide a list of common payment reasons where the customer had to pick the most relevant to them. The final section focused on a re-emphasis of key warning messages. Since the warning messages were brought in, Santander has seen a reduction in scam related payments of 15%.
Lifetime Achievement – Professor Michael Levi
“It feels slightly odd for an academic to win a lifetime achievement award for ‘Tackling’ economic crime. However I am delighted to have been fortunate enough to help bridge the worlds between empirical and conceptual work, on the one hand, and real activities by practitioners and policy-makers, on the other. Of course, many efforts do not come off, and demonstrating effects of interventions often requires qualitative interpretation as well as quantitative data. But I had the satisfaction of engagement with practice long before it became fashionable to look for ‘impact’ in research.
Michael Levi, PhD, DSc (Econ), FAcSS, FLSW, Professor of Criminology, Cardiff University
All of our successful efforts rest symbiotically on the hard work and commitment of practitioners, and though I may get the headline award, I am enormously grateful to those public and private sector people and funding agencies for their faith in me personally and in my work. This award reinforces my motivation, and I hope not to rest on my laurels and to continue until Parent Time tells me it’s time to quit.”
Since his PhD at Southampton University, Professor Michael Levi has contributed enormously to the understanding of the links and differences between white-collar and organised crime. Michael is a founding member of the British and European Societies of criminology and his outstanding achievement has led him to win a number of awards including the Outstanding Achievement Award from the British Society of Criminology. He is past President of the US National White-Collar Crime Research Consortium and the only criminologist to get a prestigious ESRC Professorial Fellowship (2007-10). Michael has played an important role since the 1970s in development of economic crime policy. During his career, Michael has contributed to the PM’s Strategy Unit, the Council of Europe and the European Commission – to name just a few. On top of all this, Michael has been a committed supervisor to all his PhD students at Cardiff University.