It’s difficult to know what to say about the Serious Fraud Office in the wake of its acknowledgement that its officers simply didn’t understand documents that patently cleared the property investor Vincent Tchenguiz of wrong-doing in the collapse of Iceland’s Kaupthing.
Apparently they were “very busy” at the time (Spring last year) and this is just a case of “human error.”
Remember that this raid on the Tchenguiz Brothers involved 130 SFO officials and City of London police officers, searching multiple addresses at dawn and making numerous arrests. But the cops didn’t understand the documents they were acting upon…
The SFO has been exhibiting constant signs of “human error” since its foundation in 1988. Over the past 14 years there have been two lines of debate concerning this agency’s future: one (typically from inside the SFO) has argued that it should be given ever-more draconian powers to pursue prosecutions, including a generalised opt-out from the Magna Carta; the alternate line has argued that this agency is basically flawed and irrepairable — it was built with faulty materials, so it needs to be abolished and perhaps re-built.
Anyone joining either of those lines of debate needs to visit the SFO website to view the agency’s five year plan. You can get it in Flash format here or pdf here, but here’s a taste…
The mission doesn’t appear to be going to well.