The winners of the second edition of the Tackling Economic Crime Awards (TECAs) were announced on Wednesday 9th December at a virtual awards show where representatives from across the financial crime sector tuned in live to celebrate the outstanding achievements of all the finalists and winners.
The winners were selected by an esteemed panel of judges and the awards were presented in 11 categories to public, private and third sector organisations and individuals who had made a significant impact in desisting all areas of economic crime.
Professor Martin Gill, founder of the TECAs, commented:
“We were delighted to hold the presentation of the TECAs for the second year – all be it virtually – to recognise the sector’s achievements at the end of such a challenging year. All the finalists and especially the winners should be proud. The judging process is strict and robust; each judge marks independently against a set of criteria, and they commit to declaring any conflict of interest. Each entry must achieve a fixed score threshold to become a finalist, ensuring consistent quality across the competition, which means all the finalists – individuals, teams and companies represent outstanding performance of the highest level.”
2020 Award Winners:
Outstanding Team
Zurich Insurance Intelligence Team
Zurich has revolutionised its existing intelligence services with the objective of fostering a proactive intelligence led approach by investing in some truly innovative technology. Partnerships with Carpe Data, BAE and internal use of data analytics have revolutionised their approach to intelligence provision, greatly increasing fraud detection and delivering stronger protection for their commercial and municipal customers.
“We are delighted to be recognised by the industry for our approach to intelligence led investigation. We’ve invested heavily in a proactive intelligence model, partnering with exciting new technology vendors to put intelligence management at the very centre of our efforts to tackle insurance fraud. The competition this year for these prestigious awards was fierce which only bodes well for us all in our efforts to fight economic crime at all levels.”
David Clements, Investigations Manager Zurich
Outstanding Customer Service Initiative
Hertfordshire Constabulary & Catch 22 – Beacon Victim Care Initiative
Hertfordshire Constabulary and Catch22 have created a partnership in their Beacon Victim Care Centre to support victims of fraud. 2 Victim Care Officers contact every victim of fraud in Hertfordshire, providing them with information and prevention advice, practical support, and offering them long term, specialist support from a Catch22 if needed. In the first year they spoke with 4,500 victims, enabling them to recover monies lost and protect themselves from revictimization. One victim reported their intervention had prevented their suicide.
“We are thrilled that the work of our dedicated team has been recognised like this. Setting up this award-winning hub which directly address those affected by fraud has enabled us to have team members with specialist knowledge, who can work with victims one-to-one while empowering them to know their rights.
Hertfordshire Constabulary, David Lloyd, our Police and Crime Commissioner, and Catch22 have always supported us to better meet the needs of Hertfordshire’s victims of crime by adapting our service as we see fit – ensuring no victim is left behind.”
Outstanding Training Initiative
Lloyds Banking Group – Fraud & Financial Crime Training Initiative
Project to create bespoke combined induction and annual refresher training to provide the breadth and depth of economic crime knowledge individuals need. An ambitious task to distil four hours of learning redefined the approach by eliminating the need to repetitively re-learn concepts, while providing a positive learning experience. Focused on key concepts with real-life scenarios blending theory and practice. Forward thinking and innovative while visually hard hitting ensured personal resonance and impact. Over 240,000 hours unnecessary learning time saved. One colleague commented ‘The first time I’ve truly understood the concepts of fraud and financial crime and how they link together.’
“This is fantastic news, was certainly one of the most positive experiences I have had during the development of learning for the mandatory training schedule and really thrilled it has been recognised. A real demonstration of living the values I think.”
Eilish Drugan, Manager Learning Technologies
“Having led the project management on this for the fraud and financial crime team it was such an honour to get this recognition of the hard work that we put into this ambitious project. It was a truly collaborative effort and the culmination of months of activity, getting this recognition is the icing on the cake.”
Stephanie Ogunjimi, Senior Manager Fraud and Financial Crime Prevention
“It is great to be recognised for an excellent piece of learning that covers a hard hitting subject matter in such an engaging and memorable way.”
Jo Cabena, Project Manager
Outstanding New Product
Zurich Insurance – Carpe Data Counter Fraud Solution for Zurich Insurance
Through partnership with Carpe Data, Zurich have developed an automated solution to screen personal injury insurance claims to establish whether the claimant’s online profile is consistent with their alleged injury. This ground-breaking achievement represents a truly intelligence-led and proactive approach to improving fraud detection at a time when insurers are under increasing pressure to pay claims faster. It is believed that this product may revolutionise the industry’s approach to detecting personal injury claims fraud.
Outstanding Partnership
BAE Systems & Zurich Partnership
Zurich and BAE Systems collaborated to deliver a highly ambitious fraud detection solution. The investment involved dramatically increasing the scope of data washing capabilities and pioneering an entirely new approach to the screening of public authority and commercial insurance claims. In the short period since being successfully delivered, the solution has entirely transformed the approach to counter fraud detection and investigation. The tool has already identified over 500 new frauds across various product lines worth £5m.
Outstanding Investigator
Dave Perry – HMRC
Dave is a Senior Investigator in HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service. As a tax professional Dave is at the forefront of HMRC’s civil response to tackling tax fraud. His career spans three decades, all of which have been in frontline compliance roles. Dave’s contribution to protecting millions of pounds for the UK Exchequer and tackling white collar crime is impressive, but equally impressive is his ability to guide and direct others in tackling some of HMRC’s biggest civil investigations. His ability to deliver results in HMRC’s most complex civil fraud and avoidance cases, whilst positively influencing customer behaviour is outstanding.
Outstanding Young Professional – Sponsored by Altia-ABM
Zac Barrett – HMRC FIS Cybercrime
Zac joined HMRC Cybercrime team as an apprentice in 2015, his role has developed into leading the way within the Cybercrime team to innovate and enable data exploitation to identify Fraud. Zac’s skill, continuous self-development and dedication has proven he is a vital member of the team. Zac gathered user requirements, designed, built digital tools and capabilities to identify Organised Crime risks against Covid-19 support schemes within less than 48 hours. In the months that followed, Zac continued to update and enhance capability and applied these systems to detect many thousands of fraudulent claims within the schemes, saving many £M.
Outstanding Female Professional – Sponsored by Cifas
Claire Jenkins FCCA – Companies House
Claire’s passion is tackling fraud and dishonesty. She works with others in a proactive, harmonious way to tackle fraud, and brings excellence to everything she does. Her work recently uncovered suspicious companies with a potential fraud value of £24.5m. She responds to “it can’t be done” with the question – “why?” She uses her high profile to promote the counter-fraud message, speaking at conferences and giving masterclasses on identifying fictitious accounts. In addition, she recently completed her dissertation for her MSc Forensic Accounting, focussing on the little-studied area of external fraud acts against companies.
“To win the Outstanding Female Professional” award at the TECA’s is truly an honour. As a fraud fighter, to have this recognition for what I do and to win a TECA is high praise indeed”
Outstanding Male Professional
Philip Juhasz – Hertfordshire Shared Anti-Fraud Service
A senior investigator who consistently delivers. Leading by example, mentoring staff, embracing new challenges & encourages colleagues to do the same. He’s built strong working relationships with partners, delivered tailored training embedding a strong anti-fraud culture. Phil is an outstanding investigator. He led the challenges of joint working with the DWP identifying fraud losses of £500,000; used & promoted the use of IPA legislation; led a team to recover 42 properties subject of tenancy fraud; whilst also managing a complex social care fraud valued in excess of £700,000. Phil is in the forefront of fighting fraud, he was the first Local Government Officer to join the Government Counter Fraud Profession.
“It was a an honour to be acknowledged by SAFS for my hard work and commitment with a nomination, let alone making the finalists and going on to win the category which was not expected as there are so many outstanding professionals working to counter fraud and economic crime. I am very proud to receive a this award from TECAS. Thank you.”
Outstanding Prevention Initiative
Scam Marshals – National Trading Standards Scams Team
A Scam Marshal is someone who has been a victim or targeted by scams and wants to fight back against such crimes. These Marshalls forward the scam mailings they receive to the National Trading Standards Scams Team investigators. This helps to build up real-time intelligence on how criminals are committing these crimes. Scam Marshals are kept up to date on these scams and how to combat them through monthly newsletters and they share their knowledge with their networks. The team has over 1,600 Scam Marshals who speak to an average of 11 people about scams (17,600 people).
Lifetime Achievement – Sponsored by LexisNexis Risk Solutions
Katy Worobec
Katy has worked in economic crime and been a focal point in the industry for over 20 years, most recently as Director of Financial Fraud Action UK, one of the precursor trade associations which merged to form UK Finance.
Katy was responsible for establishing the industry fraud data and intelligence sharing unit, the Financial Fraud Bureau, introducing the Industry Threat Management Process, and building the coordinated industry response to significant data loss/breaches following the HMRC data loss in 2007. She instigated the Fraud Intelligence Sharing System and helped deliver the Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU), the industry sponsored police unit, in 2002. She led the development of the Take 5 education and awareness campaign, worked with Home Office and City of London Police to establish the Joint Fraud Taskforce and advised on the setting up of the Joint Money Laundering Intelligence Taskforce (JMLIT).
Katy has played a leading role in shaping and driving the strategic agenda on fraud for the financial services industry and that has included distinguished work on promoting public private partnerships. She has consistently shown throughout her career the same unfailing commitment, integrity and respect for those she works with putting people at the heart of everything she has done. For Katy, it has not been about personal glory, but about working assiduously and cooperatively to protect people and organisations from being the victims of fraud. We commend to you a truly worthy winner.
“I was completely gob smacked to receive this Lifetime Achievement Award and am absolutely delighted. Had I been more prepared I would have said what I’m going to say now: all the things that were mentioned in the testimonial only came to be because of the marvellous team I have had around me to deliver them. The make up of that team, the individuals and my position in it may have changed over the years, but what has been consistent is the passion and commitment each and every person has shown in playing their part in Tackling Economic Crime.”
The event organisers would like to thank all those who helped make the TECAs such a success including: associations and their representative judges; ACFE, Cabinet Office, Cifas, CIPFA, City of London Police, Fraud Advisory Panel, H I Counter Fraud Group, Insurance Fraud Bureau, London Fraud Forum, NAFN, North East Fraud Forum, NHS Counter Fraud Authority, RUSI, Serious Fraud Office, UK Finance and University of Portsmouth. Sponsors – Altia-ABM; Cifas and LexisNexis Risk Solutions; and media partners – Security Matters; International Security Expo and The Security Event.
Category Sponsors 