Britain's un-serious fraud squad again

Thousands of confidential documents lost by the Serious Fraud Office have turned up at a cannabis farm, it emerged last night.

The fraud squad last month admitted it had lost 32,000 documents, 81 audio tapes and other electronic media from 59 sources after accidentally putting them in the post.

The data included the identity of a major prosecution witness in a £43billion fraud case against defence giant BAE Systems.

But now it has emerged the files were put in a self-storage warehouse in London’s Docklands, which was also used to house stolen goods and grow cannabis.

Shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry said she was ‘profoundly shocked’ after being told about the epic blunder.

It is the latest in a long list of episodes that have called into question the competence of the fraud office, which receives £31million of taxpayers’ money annually.

Mrs Thornberry, the Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury, said: ‘They sent it to the wrong person, who put it into storage.

'I understand there was stolen property in the warehouse, and there was also a cannabis factory. You couldn’t make it up.’

In a written parliamentary answer to Mrs Thornberry, solicitor general Oliver Heald revealed the SFO had spent more than £10,000 finding the files. It claims it has recovered 98 per cent of them.

Officials are now contacting all of the individuals affected by the loss and have ensured the same mistake will not happen again.

Last month, the SFO said 98 per cent of the material had been found and were quick to emphasise that none of the data which had been lost between May and October 2012 related to national security.

Ms Thornberry said the SFO had been riddled with problems for a number of years, as she blamed the Government for cutting the SFO’s budget by 27 per cent.

She added: 'I want the SFO to succeed and this is another dreadful mistake. 'I understand that they are doing their utmost to make sure something like this never happens again.

'I’m really shocked, I’m profoundly shocked by this, and I am quite sure that members of the public who were giving assistance to the authorities, they certainly never expected their identities to be abused in this way.

'If (the identities are) found in this paperwork and it ends up in a storage facility which is being used for crime I think it just makes it so much worse. I am almost lost for words.'

'The fact of the matter is we get one huge mistake after another. I don’t think it makes life any easier for them also to be subjected to 27 per cent cuts - I point the finger of blame at the Government.

'They are the ones that have made the decision. I don’t think that makes their functioning any easier. I don’t think it makes the new person in charge’s job any easier at all. 'Clearly that doesn’t help them.'

The SFO’s investigation into BAE began in 2004, prompted by allegations concerning the company’s dealings with Saudi Arabia.

Eventually it was looking into contracts between BAE and a number of other countries including the Czech Republic, Romania and South Africa.

The Saudi Arabia investigation was discontinued in December 2006 in the interest of national security.

BAE was also under investigation in the US in 2010, but reached a settlement with the American Department of Justice, paying £255.7 million and pleading guilty to one charge of conspiring to make false statements to the US government.

The FTSE 100 giant was also fined £500,000 at Southwark Crown Court in December 2010 after admitting it had failed to keep adequate accounting records in relation to the defence contract for the supply of an air traffic control system to the government of Tanzania.

An SFO spokesman said: 'The SFO has been taking this matter very seriously since identifying the loss and is in the process of contacting all the affected parties.

'We have ensured no further material can be wrongly returned to a source in an investigation and are implementing the recommendations from an independent review.'

Original report here

　

　

　

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