HM Treasury Approves
AML Guidance for the Legal Sector – It was reported last week that HM Treasury has approved the updated Legal Sector Affinity Group (LSAG) Anti-Money Laundering (AML) guidance.
LSAG, which consists of both regulatory and representative bodies for legal services in the UK, produced the guidance on the AML regulations which, following the Treasury’s approval, constitutes official guidance which can be used and followed by legal practices supervised by the Law Society for AML purposes.
On Thursday 6 July 2022, at Inner London Crown Court, a London man was sentenced to 21 months imprisonment (suspended for two years) and ordered to complete 180 hours of unpaid work following changing his plea from not guilty to guilty, for fraud by false representation, money laundering and providing a regulated claims management service whilst unauthorised to do so.
The fraudster set up hundreds of fraudulent motor insurance policies using stolen personal information including those of his mother as well as unknowing members of the public.
Targeting some of the UK’s biggest insurance companies, using motor insurance policies which charged between £80-£150 per policy, he managed to gain around £50,000 over a 15 month period, by acting as an illegal intermediary, or ‘Ghost Broker@ as they are known in the insurance sector.
The Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB) first identified the suspicious activity after it found 28 insurance policies which appeared to be linked to just one individual. The case was then referred to City of London Police’s Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department (IFED) for further investigation, where a search warrant exposed an even greater number of fraudulent policies linked to the fraudster. Just as worrying maybe was that the investigation uncovered that many of his customers were completely aware that the policies they were purchasing were fraudulent, but were happy to use this fake cover to enable them to drive on public roads.
