![ECVCU Victim Contact](http://techrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/ECVCU-Victim-Contact.png)
Real function? Saving face? Response to bad press? Reaction to betrayed victims?
Summary: The very serious crimes committed by Sirius ‘Open Source’ while I worked there (I didn’t know until this year) are leaving many people in the British government red-faced and the police (at several levels already) is trying to sweep the whole thing under a rug
The pension fraud at Sirius ‘Open Source’ might only be the edge of a very large iceberg. What do managers know? Some contact us with a tone resembling “begging”. If they were not being properly audited due to scale-related exemptions, what other financial crimes were also being committed? Only managers from that time may know the full extent of the fraud, wage theft, etc.
Readers may wonder why we haven’t covered this topic for a week. We just needed to give police as much as a week to reply and since there’s no progress, we’re now escalating further (higher). For those who missed what we covered last month, our regime tried to pretend that pension fraud committed by itself (via a contractor) is like falling for some Nigerian scammer online and victims can be brushed off with some “advice” rather than law enforcement. As if having a chat over the telephone would do; babytalk rather than imprisoning those responsible, i.e. those who were paid by our own regime. We call that “arse-covering” here; they know they’re culpable, so they’re just trying to tire down the complainants.
So later on, maybe later this week, I will report to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) or Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC); not that they will fix it, I don’t expect the cover-up to stop at the police, but it’ll make a point. It’s all very Kafkaesque. What started as outright fraud at Sirius, a small government contractor, is now a scandal implicating the whole British system. It’s shielding the criminals instead of protecting their victims.
“I hope that it had a specific enough (and accurate enough) call to action for them to work with,” one person advised me last month. “It’s good that there are still additional options in reserve. However, this one might take a lot of back-and-forth negotiation before moving forward. It’s very important to emphasise that many former employees were also ripped off by Sirius in this manner. And that the manner of the ripoff is very likely a serious crime in the UK.”
We’ve just spoken to additional informed people and escalating this to the British media (mainstream press) is still in the cards. But the higher up we go now, the bigger this blunder becomes. The chain of complicity becomes longer.
Speaking to supervisory agencies is just one of 10 escalation steps ahead (we have them written down; it’s a checklist for a broken system). As a reminder, on the last Monday of June things escalated to London’s authorities (they know me in person because I worked for them and went there in person), which in turn referred the case to ECVCU Victim Contact/City of London Police. Knowing the people will help a lot, I think, but the people they referred me to don’t know me.
As a recap, it all started in March with Greater Manchester Police (repeatedly insisting I defer to Action Fraud after nearly 40 minutes on the phone), then Action Fraud (4 weeks, no action), then my MP contacting Action Fraud (4 weeks, no response), then London’s authorities (GLA), then ECVCU Victim Contact/City of London Police. Exactly one week ago (Saturday morning) I wrote to them:
We have received a referral in relation to the report you made to Action Fraud, crime reference number [redacted] refers.
As part of our service we are contacting you to offer further advice, guidance and support regarding your fraud, which you will find below. In addition, if you would like us to make contact with you to discuss further, could you please provide us with your telephone number and one of our Victim Contact Advisors will attempt to call you on a day and at a time convenient to you. We operate Monday to Friday from 0900-1800.
If you have any concerns regarding the authenticity of this email, please refer to our website for reassurance and further information, http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/vcoa-unit
Hi, City of London Police,
It is now July. What is the latest progress on this? Have arrests been made yet? If you are not progressing the case, I will escalate higher.
Regards,
They did not even bother responding to me. It was my second message to them.
They don’t even respond.
Typical, more of the same.
And to repeat what was said here before, the complaint to HMRC regarding Sirius went nowhere. Now almost 2.5 months without even a reply. One must thus deduce that unless one is an oligarch or a King, operating through a network/legion of well-connected lawyers, HMRC (HM stands for His Majesty’s) is unresponsive to reports of tax fraud. HMRC (cherry-) picks on the vulnerable, who lack legal defence. It’s “cheaper” this way.
So what comes next is a referral to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). It’s now known as the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) and except in Northern Ireland there seems to be no ombudsman for the police, so this seems to be the last resort at this level. The police level. The cops have political masters too, so we’ve not exhausted the options.
A lot of people have understandably become cynical about “the system” and how it’s definitely not working. But proving this or demonstrating that as an actual victim of a crime takes a lot of work.
While we still have some remnants of democracy and free speech it is still feasible to safely or almost safely criticise and challenge key institutions, even courts and police. If we don’t exercise those freedoms, we’ll lose them and criminals/oligarchs will control everything, like in Russia or China.
As a side note, the police does not even name its unit consistently. It seems to be more about keeping up appearances rather than doing anything. For instance, what London municipality called “Economic Crime Victim Care Unit” is not consistent with E-mails that say “Economic Crime Victim CONTACT Unit”. A cynic might say that maybe they changed names as they decided they did not CARE and would just CONTACT instead (but would not even respond to messages from the victims whom they contact!). A care unit became contact unit (same acronym) and there is also National Economic Crime Victim Care Unit (NECVCU), albeit not the same thing. They’re not even sure what to call themselves. Here’s the Victims Commissioner. Someone has told me that in the United States police don’t say victim. They say “complaining witness”.
In short, the police here has made no effort at all to tackle the crime. To make matters worse, they talk to us like we bought fake ‘crypto’ coins or something inane like that; or sent money to a Nigerian prince…
But this is not what happened; it was a well coordinated scam by govornment entities and they don’t want to be left holding the bag. Instead they pretend we’re all just stupid and this won’t end well.
We’ll escalate this matter further and then escalate to media/press, as legal action is too slow. We might follow up with GLA (London Municipality; the company is based there) and local MPs to remind them what sort of police forces they’re funding. It generally signals to everyone out there that crime pays off and if one commits a crime and gets caught, no punishment will follow. Even if one lives in the UK and still operates in the UK, with impunity.