Jersey will continue to be a target for "top draw con-men"

Tuesday 04 August 2015

The case of a serial liar who claimed to be worth millions, but who actually couldn't pay debts of just a few thousand, is being used as example of the sort of con-man Jersey needs to watch out for.

Andrew Fleming was sentenced to 12 months in jail after becoming the first person ever to be prosecuted for providing the Jersey Financial Services Commission (JFSC) with false and misleading information. He had tried to hoodwink lawyers, investors and banks across the globe into thinking that he was not just a legitimate businessman but a multi-millionaire Monaco resident worth $500m with a collection of trust companies from Geneva to the Cayman Islands.

But in truth he was a serial liar who had been previously declared bankrupt and faced financial ruin.

The 48-year-old’s lies were exposed when he sought approval from the JFSC to buy the now defunct Herald Trust Company in June 2013.

In an interview published in the August edition of Connect magazine, the Director of Enforcement at the JFSC, Barry Faudemer, described the case as an example of the sort of crime which could really damage the financial services industry, if strict rules aren't followed by local businesses:

"It’s very easy just to focus on the bad behaviour, which is my world, but actually we see a lot of really good work from businesses out there.  For example, the likes of Mr Fleming, a conman seeking to purchase a local trust company, he’s a classic example where the anti-money laundering defences of the Island, and I include businesses in that who are an integral part of those defences, and those defences worked, and as a result Mr Fleming was identified and arrested by the police and he was successfully prosecuted.

"Working with the firm concerned, we were able to protect a trust company, and that trust company is still successfully trading (under another name); and we were able to protect clients within that trust company so that’s what it’s about really: making sure everybody is at the top of the game, and they’re compliant with the rules, and that our defences are robust as they possibly can be, to keep the likes of Mr Fleming from creating havoc and cost to our industry."

Mr Faudemer said that high-profile cases such as that involving Andrew Fleming helped to communicate what the JFSC was trying to achieve:

"It’s here to help protect investors. It’s here to help prevent financial crime in Jersey, and elsewhere, so we have very clear guiding principles, and I don’t think those are fully understood at times - and of course the majority of work that we do is not subject to a public statement, so people don’t see it." 

People don’t see when you have the company that’s on the verge of insolvency, and we need to work with that business to try and get them back up on their feet, or get them to merge with another company to get them into a safe harbour.  No one sees that work.  They might read a few lines about the merger, but they don’t see all the effort and negotiations that have gone on behind the scenes, and we can’t trumpet that."

Mr Faudemer said that high-profile cases such as that involving Andrew Fleming helped to communicate what the JFSC was trying to achieve:

"It’s here to help protect investors. It’s here to help prevent financial crime in Jersey, and elsewhere, so we have very clear guiding principles, and I don’t think those are fully understood at times - and of course the majority of work that we do is not subject to a public statement, so people don’t see it." 

People don’t see when you have the company that’s on the verge of insolvency, and we need to work with that business to try and get them back up on their feet, or get them to merge with another company to get them into a safe harbour.  No one sees that work.  They might read a few lines about the merger, but they don’t see all the effort and negotiations that have gone on behind the scenes, and we can’t trumpet that."