New York’s Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is making moves to the financial crimes bureau so as to include “financial wrongdoing.” Fans of financial oversight will be overjoyed at the prospect of the expanding office. Ranting and angry critics of the banking system will be pleased to see this new expansion in their direction.
The Existing criminal bureau will now have a specific unit dedicated to tracking, finding and auditing “financial wrongdoing.” According to Bloomberg, former state prosecutor Gary Fishman will be the chief of the Criminal Enforcement and Financial Crimes Bureau, the new expansion of the Criminal Prosecutions Bureau. Fishman served in the Manhattan D.A.’s office for more than 15 years, leading investigations into foreign financial institutions that bypass sanctions on countries like Iran.
Attorney General Schneiderman went on to say “Financial Industry leaders who play by the rules deserve a level playing field, and those bad actors who seek to take advantage of their competitors and their neighbors must be stopped and punished.”
Since the financial crisis, oversight has been a main concern and the markets have intensified enforcement. The new focus on the bureau’s expansion will be on “complex financial crimes” in financial institutions, private equity firms, investments banks and hedge funds. The new criminal focus will be searching for wrongdoings in the areas of “investment fraud, money laundering, mortgage fraud, investment schemes, and insurance fraud.”
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