I quite fancied the idea of going on a dawn raid, the suspect dragged into a police van in handcuffs, the wife hysterical and the kids screaming, so beloved of the blue-light TV cop dramas. But in the City of London it’s rather different. I’m in about the fanciest office atrium imaginable, soaring sculptures and giant flat screens, the sleek receptionist unruffled by the unannounced arrival of a team of fraud investigators from City of London Police and trading standards, demanding access, files and records.
But there will be no arrests. The buzzword among the scambusters today is “disruption”. The so-called boiler room operators, the hard-sell purveyors of fake shares, bonds and carbon credits , too often scarper from the scene before the police can build enough evidence to prosecute. The victims, usually newly retired men conned into “the next big thing” on the stock market, are so embarrassed they fell for it, the police don’t hear until it’s too late. So the new approach is to get in early, even if no complaints have emerged,
Our first raid is on one of the many serviced office companies offering luxury short lets, mail forwarding and virtual office services. The eagle-eyed trading standards boss, formerly a commercial lawyer, can spot the hallmarks of a scam after leafing through just a few records.
The blue-chip name of the company is designed to impress. Its address is the City skyscraper, its international office is on Wall Street, and it’s registered in the British Virgin Islands. But it has just one sole director, whose actual home is above a bookmakers in Watford. “We’re not saying this is definitely a scam,” says the woman from trading standards, but it has all the hallmarks. She demands more information on the tenant – and the serviced office company providing space to the possible fraudster is on notice.
On our second raid, at a rather less glitzy office near St Paul’s Cathedral, we are left a bit stumped. The business sells investments in rare coloured diamonds, but when we arrive all that confronts us is a locked, abandoned office. An earlier visit by fraud investigators had evidently prompted the tenants to do a runner. A lonely goldfish is all that’s left. “Maybe we’ll be able to do them for animal cruelty,” says the detective.
The tenants downstairs said they were always suspicious of their office neighbours. Young lads, lots of commotion, the ceiling shaking. “It’s another sign,” sighs the lady from trading standards. “Boiler room cold-callers are typically rowdy, raucous and arrogant.”
Our third visit is more promising. It is an address that is, on paper, perhaps the most top-notch in the City. The sort of location that gives a company the all-important halo of solidity. But actually it’s the door round the back, taking you into a series of rent-by-the-hour desks and rooms which the manager casually admits have been used by boiler rooms. He’s no stranger to the police, asking, in an almost familial way, if some of his former tenants are in the nick.
The whiteboard displays tenants with names that even a casual glance fills me with suspicion. Anyone selling “renewables” investments from a cheaply rented desk is almost certainly a con man. The detective eyes one company already on his radar and wants to know how it operates.
“They bring hundreds of letters for us to send out from here, that’s all,” says the manager. But he’s as interested as the police; con artists rarely pay the rent in full and leave a trail of distressed victims calling at his door.
All the visits and raids are part of Operation Broadway, set up to tackle the £1.7bn in investment scams coming out of the Square Mile between October 2013 and September 2014 alone.
Should they be doing more to put the crooks behind bars? The police insist “disruption” complements prosecution, not replaces it, and that reports from victims are down dramatically.
And by the way, it wasn’t Watford and it wasn’t diamonds – but I’m under orders not to expose identities. For now.
