Up to their tricks

Robert Hunter is Head of the Trust, Asset Tracing and Fraud Department at Allen & Overy LLP. He may be contacted on tel: +44 (0) 20 3088 0000; email: robert.hunter@allenovery.com Reporting by Timon Molloy.

We all tell lies,” observed Robert Hunter of Allen & Overy LLP, arguably the UK’s leading solicitor in civil fraud, when he addressed the C5 11th Annual Fraud & Asset Tracing & Recovery Forum, “It’s part of the social fabric of exchange -‘I’m delighted to see you’ or ‘Doesn’t the bride’s dress look lovely?’” There is a distinction however to be made between this sort of intercourse and the compulsive dishonesty that characterises many fraudsters, who are unaffected by the unease or embarrassment that most people feel after they have lied. The falsehoods put up to discourage pursuit may be gross by normal standards, said Hunter, “They may pretend that they or one of their children has cancer.” Such individuals also tend to be impulsive and more than ready to talk on the basis that they will ultimately make themselves believed. Typically, when discovered, they will cast themselves in the role of the victim rather than perpetrator. It will be the fault of the heavy-handed litigation against them that they have been brought to ruin, “It’s very common to see such assertions in affidavits sworn in response to freezing injunctions,” remarked Hunter. The fraud involved may be so simple that you are tempted to disbelieve in it before you have investigated, he noted, “You might be asked to investigate a company that has suffered heavy losses on a single project. The supplier is based offshore, it turns out to be a brass plate entity and all the invoices were signed by the same director.” Sometimes it is necessary to counter one’s own belief that it cannot be a fraud as surely no one would do anything so obvious, he noted, “But you must go in with an open mind.”