On October 15, 2024, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) launched the new Issue Paper on Organized Fraud during a side event at the 12th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime (COP12).
For the launch event, UNODC organized a panel discussion joined by a former professional enabler and a victim of fraud, who shared their stories.
“My ambition in life was not to facilitate fraud.”
Jonathan Gilbert, former UK lawyer, described his journey from a legal professional to enabler of fraud to a twelve-year prison sentence, of which he served six, for facilitating a complex mortgage and bank fraud valued over £50 million.
Jonathan worked for a law firm characterized by poor compliance, governance and risk. He describes a slippery slope of ethical violations which led to his wilful complicity in the fraudulent scheme. He was first asked by his co-defendant to be dishonest in a letter to a real estate agent to secure a valuable property acquisition.
After being “corrupted” by his client once, Jonathan facilitated fraud on multiple occasions. He accepted that greed, arrogance and personal flaws led him to offend. “I must admit, I had human frailties. I was blinded by ambition.”
The fraudulent scheme was uncovered in 2009. Then followed professional ruin, personal bankruptcy and the “prison sentence, public shaming, (…) and impact on my family. I was at my wit’s end. My relationship with my wife was at a breaking point.” He accepted, however, that fraud “is hugely impactful on the victims,” and that he deserved a lengthy prison sentence.
After serving his sentence, Jonathan embarked on a career as a law Lecturer at the University of the West of England, where he now teaches courses on financial crime.
Dr. Kim Sawyer, a retired academic from Australia, shared his personal story of loss and deception at the hands of fraudsters. Together with his wife, they lost thirty years of savings, equivalent to over USD 1.7 million, from their pension fund. “The financial impact was great, but I think the emotional impact subsequent to the fraud was far, far greater,” he stated.
They had been targets of a highly sophisticated fraud: “This was an authorized push payment fraud. The fraudster pretended to be a fixed interest subsidiary of an Australian bank. We first saw their advertisement through the internet, and we contacted them by email. He took the name of a bank employee and used the bank logos in all correspondence and purchase agreements. He must have made 50 or 60 phone calls to us, plus emails. They cultivated a relationship with us.”
When made aware of the extend of the fraud after being contacted by the fraud department of one of the Australian banks, Dr. Sawyer tried everything he could to recover the funds, seeking help from the banks and other agencies, but without any success.
Dr. Sawyer turned to academia to make sense of his situation and to help other victims, writing on shifting the prejudice of blame away from victims of fraud. He urges governments to adopt better protection measures for past and future victims of fraud.
The Issue Paper on Organized Fraud covers fraud perpetrated by organized criminal groups, focusing on organized fraud that targets individual members of the public or private institutions for the purposes of obtaining a financial or other material benefit.
It provides an overview and description of key categories of fraud and suggests comprehensive responses to prevent and counter organized fraud. It is a key component of a larger, UNODC-led project on preventing and combating organized fraud and is available here.
