As part of our monthly Fraud Focus podcast, we ask counter fraud professionals from across the public sector about their team's fraud prevention solutions, and what words of wisdom they would pass on to the next generation of fraud investigators and apprentices.
Here's what they had to say:
Ruth Webster, Former Head of Intelligence Analysis, Serious Fraud Office
"What I'm always saying to my staff is: it's not just about white-collar criminals and company executives. Fraud covers a lot of criminals, from a lot of different backgrounds, for a lot of different reasons; so keeping an open mindset and unbiased mind is really important.
Don't take on board any preconceived ideas of what fraud investigations are like, because you never know where this is going to take you.”
Mark Cheeseman OBE, Chief Executive, Public Sector Fraud Authority
"Finding fraud is often seen as a failure, and that's one of the things that's really holding us back. It creates a culture of defensiveness, and the idea that, 'if fraud happens we've done something wrong' - but fraud is a fact, not a failure.
So I'd say the test of efficiency in a business is the visibility and impact of the fraud professionals working there."
Duncan Tessier, Director of Economic Crime, UK Home Office
"Two things from my perspective:
We need to remember the importance of technology; how important it is for the anti-fraud profession to embrace that technology; and to think about how can we use these tools, which fraudsters will adopt. How can we use them to defend the public and the public purse against attacks - particularly given the power of artificial intelligence in the fraud space.
Secondly, and something which definitely motivates me, is remembering how important this agenda is. Of course financially, but also protecting the public. This is really one of the most insidious crime types which wreaks such awful damage - both economic and emotional - on citizens, and causes billions of pounds of loss against the public purse, which means that citizens are deprived of services that they might otherwise have had.
So for me, just remembering that what we do is really important and that's why it's vital to keep going with this collaborative effort across the public and private sectors and across countries as well."
Sean McNabb, Director - Cartels, Competition and Markets Authority
"I suppose from my experience, what we're dealing with is serious and complex fraud, and it is a very challenging thing to uncover secret cartels. They are getting increasingly sophisticated in terms of how they operate and it's a constantly changing environment to obtain evidence.
You're often up against very well-resourced companies with well-resourced law firms. So, it is a challenging environment. So my mantra to the teams that I lead is to keep fighting, keep at it, because it is a challenge and it can be a long slog to prove a cartel case. But keep at it and have the perseverance to go after the evidence and deal with the challenges that undoubtedly do come with a serious and complex fraud investigation."
Looking for More Fraud Prevention Solutions...
Preventing fraud before the fact is one of the main pillars to combatting this prevalent and hidden crime.
For more fraud prevention solutions, listen to the rest of the interviews live on Fraud Focus - the monthly videocast hosted by Mark Cheeseman OBE of the Public Sector Counter Fraud Authority.
Season 1 is free to watch here >> https://info.govnet.co.uk/fraud-focus-season-1
Jessica Kimbell, GovNet
