The SFO said it wants to encourage people within organisations, or connected to organisations, with an inside knowledge of suspect practices, to use “SFO Confidential”, as the service is to be known, to report their suspicions for investigation.
SFO director Richard Alderman said, “I want people to come forward and tell us if they think there is fraud or corruption going on in their workplace.
“Company executives, staff, professional advisers, business associates of various kinds or trade competitors can talk to us in confidence. I have set up a special team to make the SFO readily accessible to whistleblowers, with trained staff sympathetic in dealing with any anxieties people might have about coming forward. I want whistleblowers to feel comfortable about it and use SFO Confidential to help flush out fraud.”
The SFO said the new service, which is also available online, has been designed specifically to cater for those people who, though not themselves the victim of fraud or directly disadvantaged by corruption, have knowledge through their professional activities of situations that “appear to be suspicious”.
Wanted list
In a similar move, the Securities and Futures Commission in Hong Kong announced earlier this week that it is to begin publishing the photographs and details of people wanted in connection with financial crime. This “wanted list" is available on the SFC website.
The “SFC Confidential” service, which is also available online, is open from Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. The contact number is 020 7239 7388.
Guidance and the reporting form are accessible at http://www.sfo.gov.uk/fraud/sfo-confidential—provide-information-in-confidence.aspx
Reports can also be made to confidential@sfo.gsi.gov.uk
