All cases need evidence, and Edmonds Marshall McMahon provides a complete service which includes financial crime investigations. We can work closely with your own firm’s investigators or we can provide investigative assistance (overt or covert) through well-respected and experienced financial crime investigators. Financial crime investigators include private investigators, forensic accountants and auditors. Forensic accountants provide expertise in financial reporting systems, accounting and auditing standards and procedures and can also give expert evidence where a private prosecution goes to court. We can source experienced and well respected experts who are familiar with your business’s industry sector in order that this knowledge can complement the direction and content of their financial crime investigation.
We specialise in targeting organised crime affecting businesses and economic productivity and one of the most effective ways to successfully prosecute sophisticated criminals is by using financial investigative techniques. We are well placed to guide and/or conduct robust financial crime investigations in order to identify offences such as false accounting, fraud offences including fraud by abuse of position, money laundering offences and theft and to also locate all of a defendant’s assets, here or abroad. Financial crime investigations assist private prosecutions in a number of ways, by initially identifying the wrongdoing in the first instance and once this has been identified these investigations provide assistance in securing any misappropriated assets and in the prosecution of the perpetrator/s.
There are tools at the disposal of a private prosecutor which assist in the preservation of misappropriated assets by a defendant such as restraint orders which can be made prior to the commencement of a private prosecution but while the criminal investigation is being undertaken. Financial crime investigations locate assets owned or used by the defendant or organised crime group members as well as the ownership and use of properties which can then be restrained. Examination of financial records inevitably reveals additional offences such as money laundering which can then be included in the private prosecution of these defendants. Financial crime investigations can reveal complex corporate structures identifying additional offences and offenders. Financial trails can track the movements of individuals and place people at particular places at particular times, thereby providing evidence linking them to criminality or particular criminal groups.
The evidence uncovered through financial crime investigations of the lifestyle led by a defendant can assist in the procurement of a confiscation order following a successful private prosecution. A confiscation order can target assets of the defendant including hidden assets. This financial evidence can also aid in the enforcement of confiscation orders especially where hidden assets are involved.
The advantage of a co ordinated approach between Edmonds Marshall McMahon and an experienced financial crime investigator means that we can provide guidance to the financial crime investigator as to what evidence would be required for a private prosecution of the offences which have been uncovered. If a private prosecution has commenced or is in reasonable contemplation, there is an advantage to the financial crime investigator being instructed by our firm in order that legal professional privilege will apply to communications between us whereas this would not be the case if you or your business instructed the financial crime investigator directly. We can also identify from your instructions, and with the financial crime investigator’s expertise, any other possible relevant lines of enquiry which the investigator can pursue whilst ensuring the evidential standards of this evidence is maintained in order that it can be successfully utilised in a private prosecution.