UK fraud agency to boost permanent staff by third, top official reveals

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The new director of the UK Serious Fraud Office intends to increase its permanent staff by up to a third as he seeks to reassert the agency’s reputation, according to one of its division chiefs.

The government’s anti-graft body is looking to recruit 100 to 150 investigators and case workers, Sara Chouraqui, the agency’s joint head of fraud, bribery and corruption, said on Monday.

The increase would take the total number of full-time staff to about 600.

Nick Ephgrave, who took office last month, is “determined for us to increase our capabilities, so we’re recruiting currently over 100-150 new investigators and prosecutors at the SFO, as well as analysts, accountants and so forth”, Chouraqui told the American Bar Association’s annual London White Collar Crime Institute conference.

“He wants to do more cases” and he wants to do them “fast”, she added.

The hiring spree aims to ease the SFO’s reliance on temporary staff. Michelle Crotty, its chief capability officer, said last month that 20 to 25 per cent of its permanent posts were vacant or filled by temporary workers. It plans to move its headquarters from central London to Canary Wharf in the next two years.

Ephgrave, a former Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner, is the first non-lawyer to be appointed to lead the agency in its 35-year history.

He replaced Lisa Osofsky, a dual US-UK citizen who previously worked at Goldman Sachs and the FBI and ran the agency for five years. Under Osofsky the number of criminal cases the SFO pursued halved to about 35.

The SFO’s reputation suffered after it closed in August two high-profile investigations, into miners Rio Tinto and Eurasian Natural Resources. The agency has faced a number of issues around disclosure processes in recent years, which has led to a number of cases being abandoned.

Big name investigations that are still running include a bribery case against Glencore. The company pleaded guilty last year and was ordered to pay £280mn. Chouraqui said on Monday the agency would make decisions about charging individuals in connection with the case “soon”.

The SFO last month brought charges against four individuals in connection with the collapse of UK café chain Patisserie Valerie in 2019. The group are due to appear in court on Tuesday.

Chouraqui appeared on a panel at the conference with Brent Wible, a senior official at the US Department of Justice.

The two discussed how the agencies work together and Chouraqui said the DoJ remains the SFO’s main partner in enforcement, which is “absolutely not going to change” under the new director.