There’s a dual responsibility here

Summary: As a victim of crimes committed by Sirius ‘Open Source’ I’ve contacted what was the biggest client (at some point) of Sirius ‘Open Source’ to see if they can get the police to actually do its job (this client is in charge of the police)

From what we can easily observe (since March), British police reacts to reports of crime if they’re something like murder (people nearby feel unsafe unless/until the killer gets caught) or there’s a strong POLITICAL will to solve the crime. So the reporter of a crime, typically a victim, must create that POLITICAL will, only then the police starts getting on with the program. Because they serve and protect their masters, not the victims.

On Monday I sent the following message to Greater London Authority, whose systems I worked on for a long time. I even built parts of their sites. Here’s my message to key people there:

Hi,

There’s substantial progress to report on the troubling case of Sirius Open Source, the Greater London Authority (London Municipality) contractor whose deal I helped secure in 2013 when I visited and spoke to staff. They know me by name, they know me in person. Some of you met me in person. Some of your colleagues did because I was working on their Greater London Authority (GLA) sites and microsites, with ample evidence I did a lot of work for them on the sites and beyond since 2013 (sometimes in 24/7 shift coverage, i.e. overnight). My wife did the same. You know her. Some of you met her in person. Don’t look away and pretend to be strangers, as we’ve now the victims of crimes committed by your chosen contractor. You renewed several times, pending reviews, typically in meetings which involved meeting in person those who defrauded me and my colleagues. You met them and renewed while they defrauded us (we did not know until this year). My wife and I were shocked. We both resigned this past December in light of abusive behaviour at Sirius Open Source, perpetrated by the managers.

Sirius management did this to us since 2011 if not a bit earlier. They kept this hidden from everybody. They forged payslips (the payslips lied). They committed very serious crimes.

Why am I reaching out to managers at Greater London Authority? The answer is very simple. They are in charge of Action Fraud and Sirius is/was your contractor (you were our client for almost a decade); as someone who worked for you in IT as a contractor since 2013 I think it is perfectly reasonable for me to ask you to intervene, as police is treating reports of crimes with complete disrespect (not even looking into them, based on the automated reply) and then stonewalling my MP; upon reporting the crime to Action Fraud they left me hanging for 4 weeks. I then contacted my MP, who in turn contacted Action Fraud directly. And guess what; a month has passed and Action Fraud did not bother replying to her. Is it normal for Action Fraud to gaslight victims of crimes for over 2 months? I’m not alone here. My former colleagues were defrauded similarly and we have formal letters affirming this. Standard Life issued them. It’s undeniable that a serious crime took place. The company never denied it. It’s just hiding. It refuses to talk about it.

It is my understanding, having visited my lawyer a few times, that you do have an obligation to all your staff, no matter if outsourced or contracted, and moreover you can compel Action Fraud to treat crime reports with respect in a timely manner. Is this how the British government treats workers, via contractors that are rogue? Action Fraud goes under London Police (Met), so the issue is now on your desk. I have the media/press on tap.

To avoid misunderstandings, this isn’t a sole case or an ‘accident’. The embezzlement started only a few months after I had joined the company in early 2011. So it’s not something that happened very recently. The matter was reported as a crime to the police, handled by a Members of Parliament, and also reported as tax fraud to HMRC (because it constituted misreporting taxes too).

At the end of the day you got a company that worked for you very cheaply[*], but it was cheap because it was secretly stealing money from staff, i.e. you benefited from the money stolen from your own workers.

This entire scenario makes outsourcing and such contracting practices look dubious in general, not just highly risky, for legal reasons as well.

Managers at GLA, along with elected politicians, are the ones allocating the budget for the police[**]. There’s thus double responsibility here, as managers of that budget and employer (via contractor) of the victims. Whether Action Fraud has itself devolved into a “fraud” (reputable media in the UK has investigated and found exactly that!) isn’t for me to decide. I have no say on the matter, but GLA is also in the middle of a scandal, which thus has multiple angles to it.

There’s also a potential conflict of interest here, which I am fully aware of. To the cops, the fraud report concerns a contractor of their sponsor. And of course they can always just conveniently deny the role of such a glaring factor, but that’s beside the main point that GLA must now take action to spare its own reputation.

This does look good at all for the system as a whole — a system wherein white-collar crime is being protected and victims are subjected to gaslighting and time-wasting processes, which I intend to pursue nonetheless. The press will be watching the matter, as will my former colleagues, who are also victims. Some of them now work for GLA directly.

Sincerely,

Dr. Roy S. Schestowitz
____
[*] They paid some of my colleagues 21,000 pounds a year for a role that should pay 2-3 times as much, not even counting the fact we all worked overnight and holidays (Christmas also); projects and high alertness tasks like 24/7 monitoring for the price close to minimum wage — sure you cannot get that anywhere near central London. But the low salary isn’t a crime, just an anecdote.

[**] https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/governance-and-spending/spending-money-wisely/mayors-budget

[***] https://www.met.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/fa/fraud/action-fraud/

Well, how curious that all of a sudden Action Fraud got in touch (just 4 hours later). “We do not investigate crime and we cannot assist in the recovery of any losses,” they said, but at least this got escalated. Curiously enough, none of the people addressed above bothered to reply, but it seems clear the matter got escalated to “ECONOMIC CRIME VICTIM CONTACT UNIT (VCoA)” (it is their face-saving department). “Strange statement from “action” fraud,” one person told me, seeing they claim they “do not investigate crime”, but from we can gather they did start investigating (another unit).

If people report crime to get a number (and a bot message) and then a list of URLs for “tips”, then one worries for people who lack the political connections. They cannot even blog about their experiences (some Twitter account can be shadowbanned) and rely too much on media/press bothering to give them a voice.

When starting this on Monday the timeframe for this step was 5 days, as I wanted to do this right and give them the whole working week to reply. I can report with certainty, however, that of the ~8 people contacted in the municipality none bothered to respond to me directly. Some know me in person as they worked with me.

In any case, assuming the police is on the case now, we won’t disclose any more details. Let them do their job.

This type is scenario is apparently not “uniquely British”. As Ryan from Illinois put it in his message to me only moments ago, “my spouse’s sister got the fraudulent life insurance and all that happened was that the insurance company shut the policy down. The police in two Illinois cities refused to take a report and the Department of Insurance said they weren’t an investigatory agency and the Attorney General didn’t respond at all. And this was basically leading up to a murder-for-hire, most likely. So you now have the policing system of the third most corrupt US state in London.”

To quote Ryan:

“We won’t take your report!” -Gurnee and Waukgan PD

“We won’t investigate this as a crime!” -IDoI

“We won’t even answer you!” -Illinois AG

It’s because they consider his sister as more important and of higher status. So they refuse to investigate crimes she commits against “unimportant people”. Felonies, even. Just by signing his name to that form she could theoretically do 2-5 years in prison for forgery. If they took the report. Never mind attempt to defraud an insurance company. [By murdering her sibling]

Laws are only laws if they’re enforced. Guess how quickly I’d be in the slammer if I signed “Maricel Almaria” to something to defraud insurance?

It’s one-way. She can defraud insurance companies and plan to murder her brother, and the police won’t even accept the report.

I contacted the FTC and reported her too. All they did was give me a case number in case we wanted to put a long term fraud alert on [the spouse]‘s credit report for 7 years.

There are many other examples. Let’s see what the police does next.

Summary: The crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ aren’t being tackled; the criminals await punishment, knowing that the British government (former client) might be incentivised not to get involved

N SPITE of turbulent conditions, our site has managed to stay online the entire weekend. We’ll have more to say about it some other day.

We’re meanwhile learning about high-level corruption in EU authorities, connected to the EPO. “On Monday they will meet to decide to relocate London in an illegal manner,” the FFII’s president told me the other day. “This is theft of democracy, as national parliaments did not decide this.” That’s tomorrow. High-level corruption seems to have been “normalised” somewhat. They seem to be getting away with it. The same is true here in the UK, even after Brexit.

Today we’re going to close this series, after 11 parts in total. We’ll tell a month-long story about my Member of Parliament (MP) in Central Manchester failing to communicate with the police, or rather, the police not bothering to even reply. Yes, here in the UK, not the EU and EC. In my personal view, a united Europe is good idea. I’ve always supported the EU. But now they become a hub of corruption and this month they’re greenlighting an ILLEGAL and UNCONSTITUTIONAL kangaroo court for patents, knowingly violating conventions too. How can I still support such a thing? How can anybody support such a thing? In places such as Russia, people have come to expect some arrogance in lawbreaking (“we’re above the law! What are you gonna do, eh?”), but I’m seeing the same in the EU and in the UK this year. We’ve gradually becoming more and more like the Kremlin, wherein the dictator always has the last word and doesn’t bother with laws, constitutions etc. (except when these suit him or her)

This post will lay bare the communications I’ve had with the MP or her case handler. They speak for themselves, but I will add some commentary to join the pertinent bits.

My initial message, the reaching out, was quoted verbatim in the last part. I quickly wrote a short description of the crime and emphasised that the crime also had victims other than myself. To her credit, my MP was always quick to reply and was professional^*.

Here is the response that I received a month ago (23/5/2023):

Dear Dr Roy

Thanks for getting in contact with [MP]]. So that [MP] can look into this further could you provide a copy of your response from Action Fraud and any crime reference you have.

I did as asked on the same day:

Hi, the response dated 20/5/2023:

[redacted]

On 26/5/2023:

Dear Roy

[MP] has contacted Action Fraud on your behalf requesting that they review their decision and investigate the fraud ,you have suffered. We will be in contact as soon as we have a response.

Best Wishes – Caseworker

I responded shortly afterwards:

[MP] wrote on 26/05/2023 11:37:
>
> Dear Roy
>
> [MP] has contacted Action Fraud on your behalf requesting that they review their decision and investigate the fraud ,you have suffered. We will be in contact as soon as we have a response.

Thank you, that is encouraging news.

I followed up weeks later (5/6/2023):

[MP] wrote on 26/05/2023 11:37:
>
> Dear Roy
>
> [MP] has contacted Action Fraud on your behalf requesting that they review their decision and investigate the fraud ,you have suffered. We will be in contact as soon as we have a response.
> Best Wishes Lee – Caseworker
>
> [MP] MP
> Member of Parliament for Manchester Central

Hi,

Has the police gotten back to you? My colleagues, who are also victims of the crime, wonder as well. We’ve meanwhile reported this as a tax fraud as well (because technically it is) to HMRC. 15 days later HMRC did not even bother replying. Mind you, Sirius had many government clients including Home Office and the Parliamentary Ombudsman. Some of us suspect there’s a lack of incentive to convict here, not even to investigate the matter. They hardly need to investigate because we spent months getting written statements that prove it all. Can you bring this subject up in Parliament, please?

Kind regards,

Sent by them 5/6/2023:

Dear Roy

I am sorry to report that [MP] has not yet received a response .It can regrettably take a number of weeks but we will contact you immediately.

Best Wishes – caseworker

I then followed up as follows:

[MP] wrote on 05/06/2023 09:15:
> Dear Roy
>
> I am sorry to report that [MP] has not yet received a response .It can regrettably take a number of weeks but we will contact you immediately
Thanks, I very much appreciate her looking into it. She is the first person in government to actually touch this. To reiterate why it’s sensitive:

1. UK government departments outsourced to (contracted) Sirius
2. Sirius quietly defrauded its staff (which worked on the above computer systems) within months of them joining
3. The workers found out they had been defrauded since 2011 (it took months to verify as firms were stonewalling and obstructing inquiries). It took 12 years to uncover.
4. The workers contacted Action Fraud, HMRC, the IFA, the accountant of Sirius, and the pension firms
5. To date, only the pension firms responded, but only after a lot of prodding — months of escalating to management there. Some managers initially gave contradictory stories; yes, managers at Standard Life lied to us.

It may seem or may turn out to be a potential embarrassment to those who gave the contract to Sirius. We were grossly underpaid and on top of this we were defrauded (embezzlement). There are many other scandals, but this one involves an actual crime.

Kind regards,

3 more days passed and I asked for progress and deadline (08/06/2023):

Roy Schestowitz wrote on 05/06/2023 12:32:
> [MP] wrote on 05/06/2023 09:15:
>> Dear Roy
>>
>> I am sorry to report that [MP] has not yet received a response .It can regrettably take a number of weeks but we will contact you immediately

Hi,

If my MP receives no reply within 4 weeks, are you OK with me escalating to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/independent-police-complaint-commission ? It’s now known as the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/ 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.

Regards,

Then sent by [MP]‘s office 8/6/2023 (same day):

Dear Roy

I would advise that you contact us again after 4 weeks so that we can confirm if we have received any response. You can contact them but we cannot advise if they would class this as an acceptable period to wait.

12 more days passed. It had been 4 weeks since she initiated contact. I wrote:

Hi [MP],

It has now been 4+ weeks since the E-mail that I relayed you.

As per the advice from your case worker, may I kindly suggest you escalate the matter to Parliament, stating that Action Fraud not only ignores fraud complaints from victims (the response below is quite obviously a template for several reasons; they didn’t bother even responding to it, except by bot) but also ignores my MP?

I did not know I lived in a Third-World Country where police exists only in principle. After contacting Greater Manchester Police and speaking to them for 40 minutes they strongly insisted that I contact Action Fraud and assured me action would be taken. It turns out to be even worse as Action Fraud isn’t even responding to my MP and my colleagues had a lot of money stolen from them too.

Based on inside sources, the company is quickly vanishing with all that stolen money. Action Fraud has failed to deal with this for 2 months already.

Kind regards,

As one person put it, “what other courses of action are there? why are the police unaccountable for white-collar crime and fraud?”

Stay tuned, there’s a lot more to come. There are other victims of this crimes. It cannot be brushed away or swept aside.
__________
^* My original thinking was, it’s better to be pessimistic. I assumed that my MP might do nothing. If so, that too is noteworthy. But she actually did respond and she did take action. Unlike Action Fraud. My approach at the start was, if she does not respond, I will move on to the next MP, as I did with EPO and MEPs, but never bother people, i.e. not resort to mass mailing, 2 or 3 maximum (if the first does nothing).

Video download link | md5sum d16a8e521955e0561c74d8a2dc9a0b38
Long Path Towards Justice
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0

Summary: The crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ were exposed here some months ago and reported to British police (formally) 2 months ago; I had spoken to the police since around March, but waiting for official confirmation of the crime (from Standard Life) would strengthen the report (Standard Life also confirmed this to my colleagues, separately); at this point we’re showing that the police is, instead of serving and protecting the British public, is serving and protecting high-level fraud by negligence and inaction, be it deliberate or not

t’s disturbing that there is no agency willing to even look at the dealing with the fraud,” an associate has told us today.

I’ve already documented the involvement by police here in Manchester, politicians in Manchester, Action Fraud, and even HMRC (HM stands for His Majesty, the brother of Jeffrey Epstein’s “frequent flyer”). Worry not, however, as this will escalate further and higher. The longer it goes on for, the bigger a scandal this will become, not just for Sirius (government contractor for Free software) but also for its clients and for the government. The “first US client” of Sirius (2019) was another one of Jeffrey Epstein’s “frequent flyers”, albeit under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).

It seems pretty safe to say that this series may last a lot longer than the company exists. Sirius will probably fold before it reaches its 25^th anniversary, based on reliable sources. The company is just like a pair of people now, maybe a little more than a pair. Everyone left and recruitment is infeasible.

As noted in the video above, the next steps include the police ombudsman, pension ombudsman (not the same), British media/press, the people who manage the budget of The Met (including Action Fraud), and so on. Some are directly connected to Sirius, so it’ll be a great fiasco of great proportions. There’s also the Standard Life dispute, as they gained from the scam (financially), and we might revisit NOW: Pensions at some point. Their account there is managed by criminals. They need to relinquish control of that money.

Video download link | md5sum 25143997fa3602ec8a0eb4b96c0ea757
Complaining to the Government About Government Contractor
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0

Summary: The accountability for crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ will require government intervention, i.e. law enforcement and courts’ involvement; based on what we’ve witnessed so far, the British government would rather ignore crimes that involve its frequent contractor for Free software projects

THIS tenth part of the series is primarily a video. It talks about the government connections at Sirius ‘Open Source’. Not only the police ignores the matter; we’ve also shown that HMRC is looking the other way and later this month we’ll show the reaction from agencies that gave the contracts.

Next week is important because we’ll see whether British police also ignores Members of Parliament, who are understandably upset about this impunity. The police was given 4 weeks to respond — that’s very ample time — and Tuesday (or Wednesday) marks 4 weeks.

Summary: Today we conclude this week’s series, which explained how Sirius isn’t just funded by the British government but is also protected by the British government; HMRC is not responding to fraud reports (sent exactly 4 weeks ago) and Action Fraud, overseen by a client of Sirius (since 2013), does not seem to have even opened the Pension Fraud complaint (it sent a template response after exactly 4 weeks^*)

WHEN we finally reach Tuesday or Wednesday (next week) it will be 4 weeks since my Member of Parliament contacted Action Fraud regarding the pension fraud complaint that Action Fraud is ignoring. Action Fraud has still not bothered responding to her. I’m not the sole victim of this fraud. Former colleagues were robbed as well (a lot of money was covertly stolen). For the time being we’re closing this series and will post another further update/s anew. This isn’t the end. This is only the beginning of a rather broad political scandal. Can one trust a government to regulate itself or its contractors? Can one complain to a government about abuse against its own workers? This in many ways resembles the EPO scandals. The EPO even invented its own Ombuds office or “EPO’s Ombuds service”, created and controlled by those who spent over a decade committing crimes at the EPO. Such “Ombuds” is farcical; it’s an exercise in optics (giving people out there the mere illusion of accountability).

Gaslighting and/or self-induced defeatism (learned helplessness) is a potent weapon leveraged against the impatient and unmotivated. We’re neither impatient nor unmotivated, so this will carry on and on until a resolution is found and the perpetrators of the crime are arrested.
_____
^* Out of business hours on a weekend. It seems safe to assume no actual person sent that.

Summary: Contractors may seem glowingly popular at the Linux Foundation; but what does contracting mean for corporate liability?

WHEN this series started 6 months ago we promised not to name clients, even though most of them are listed and shown publicly in the company’s official Web site.

Seeing that the British authorities (or “Crown”) are unwilling to hold Sirius accountable for pension fraud, we thought it would be worth showing what’s already public anyway. Here are some government clients of Sirius:

All the above is public anyway. And I’ve blurred out anything that’s not a public institution. Another page:

There are many more that the company does not publicly name, including Parliamentary Ombudsman, Home Office, and more recently Acas (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service). There are several more that are named, e.g. Bristol City Council. Some are omitted from the carousel, but appear in another page because almost nobody is left in the company who knows how to properly maintain its Drupal Web site e.g. myself or the Support Manager. Everyone is rapidly leaving and the replacement rate is near 0-to-1.

If we are going to expose our regime too, seeing that it does not want to look into very obvious evidence of fraud, it helps to provide evidence of the company’s ties to the government. It is very much possible that later this month it will implicate London’s municipality because it’s directly connected to the cops who aren’t investigating the matter and won’t even look into reports of crime. We don’t think it’s a coincidence. They probably just don’t that would be fun! Do they really want to participate in a blunder that embarrasses their sponsor? It’s not just any municipality; I worked on their systems for ages and I also have lots to prove just how much I worked for them while my boss defrauded me and my colleagues.

Stay tuned. We have lots left to show. Sans a D-Notice, maybe this will even hit the mainstream media.

“Hi, I have read your blog on Sirius. Do you have any time to discuss further?”

–Anonymised message, earlier this month

Video download link | md5sum cd10c506a34bdc112395c0e2c16921ce
HMRC a Money Sink
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0

Summary: What we’ve been demonstrating or highlighting so far this year is a defunct system of accountability, wherein the government officials and their associates are essentially above the law; can they endure the negative press that entails?

AS noted earlier in a meme, it’s now 3 weeks since reporting to HMRC that Sirius ‘Open Source’ lied in its tax filings when it issued false payslips. It told staff that pension payments had been made (every month for more than half a decade), but no money was paid. The company’s managers basically stole the money. It’s a crime, it’s embezzlement, and punishment for this crime is severe (there are many crimes committed all at the same time).

As the above video notes, seeing that HMRC doesn’t seem to care (probably too busy scrutinising the accounts of activists or political ‘enemies’), we’re progressing and moving onwards to additional steps. Many points of escalation remain. Thus far, the experience has been boding ill/poorly for the system of justice and enforcement in the UK. It’s like some kind of Kafka novel, wherein one turns from place to place like a ping-pong ball. Somehow some people are pretty much “above the law”. What might this do to public confidence in the “checks and balances”… or in slogans we’re shown on TV and radio (mass broadcast) about no escaping the wrath of the Rule of Law? We’ve written for nearly a decade about immunity and impunity in the EPO and now I (along with former colleagues) witness the same in the United Kingdom, a country where a “prince” can sleep with underage girls and then pay our tax money to “settle” and avoid extradition/arrest. The only person arrested over it was a protester who had ‘heckled’ him at his mom’s funeral.