Summary: The London Municipality, also known as Greater London Authority (GLA), turns its back on people who worked on its computer systems for nearly a decade; it’s not convenient to deal with victims of a crime, especially when the crime was committed on GLA’s watch while GLA was sponsoring the perpetrators of the crime

THE series about crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ is far from over. What we have here a formerly OK company that even funded the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for a couple of years turning into a criminal organisation, taking bribes in secret from Bill Gates (under an NDA) while besieging and bullying its own staff. This must be treated as a criminal matter, not a civil matter. Arrests should be made as soon as possible.

But what happens when the perpetrators of the crimes are connected to the British government, not just local authorities but also Home Office? Then it gets a little… “tricky”… or “complicated” for them to handle. It’s almost like they’re asked to investigate themselves and hold themselves accountable.

As a recap, so far I’ve contacted:

1. Greater Manchester Police (repeatedly insisting I defer to Action Fraud after nearly 40 minutes on the phone)
2. Action Fraud (4 weeks, no action)
3. My MP contacting Action Fraud (4 weeks, no response)
4. GLA (London Municipality), whose computer systemd I’ve worked on since 2013
5. ECVCU Victim Contact/City of London Police
6. The equivalent of the ombudsman next

It should be strongly emphasised that:

1. I’m not the only victim. Men and women I worked with are also victims.
2. None of the steps above resulted in any real progress, except proving that this whole “law enforcement” system is trash
3. The perpetrators of the pension fraud crime (other crimes aside) got in touch with me personally and did not deny committing the crime

About 5 days ago I sent the following message to GLA, especially senior people there (they know me in person):

City of London Police Does Not Protect GLA Staff Victimised by the Employer

Two weeks ago I wrote to you regarding Action Fraud not taking action and not even replying to my MP upon escalation. After I sent the E-mail to GLA all of a sudden I received a mostly template-like message from the City of London Police E-mail system (ECVCU Victim Contact) and the Sirius Director who was in charge at the time contacted me not denying the abuses but basically trying to discourage me from pursuing criminal enforcement. I assume City of London Police messaged me because you had asked them to. Maybe they even contacted the above-mentioned Director because she contacted me at 2AM.

I responded to the police twice, but they are not even replying (not responding to my second message for 7 days as of this morning) — that’s basically consistent with my prior experiences. Nobody from GLA bothered to even reply to me, despite me working for GLA for many years while my employer (your contractor) defrauded my colleagues and I. There are many victims here, not one. I am therefore going to escalate this higher than GLA (Sirius worked for government departments above GLA) and perhaps the media too.

It does not look good that GLA does not take crime seriously, even crimes committed against its own people, despite GLA being in charge of the police (Sirius is based in London [1,2]).

_____________
[1] https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11014042
[2] https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/03633198

These messages were definitely received, as there were even auto-responders:

Not only did they never respond. No real action has been taken to remediate things. GLA is swimming in money, it exploits people who do technical work overnight at 13-14 pounds per hour, and when it turns out those people were defrauded GLA just looks the other way. This won’t end well. We’re escalating this further and former colleague speak of legal action. Seeing how GLA and the police handled this, they’re even worse than the pension firms.

Video download link | md5sum ff10727ca3703e6abd1ccf2a43f85a9e
Managers of Police Budget Fail Miserably
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0

Summary: It increasingly looks like an elaborate festival of gaslighting if not cover-up; people whom I worked for (or with) for many years don’t want to talk about crimes committed against my colleague and I; police never went any further than sending template-like E-mails which say nothing at all and cops treat my Member of Parliament like she does not even exist to them — a blatant case of chronic contempt

HIS early morning (at around 3AM) marked one week since I last contacted London about the crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’. Much as I expected all along, there was no reply, not even an acknowledgement that they were handling my E-mails (nothing bounced, those were successfully received at their end).

What does that tell us about British police or about police in general?

What can one conclude about crimes committed by government contractors, which are in turn protected by the government? What if the crimes are committed against the staff? Should that even matter?

If the system of law enforcement has become a system of selective enforcement (wherein selections are done by those in power), then it’s not a functioning system of Law and Order or the Rule of Law. It’s a dictatorship of monarchs widely disguised and sold to the public — even to the whole world — as a democracy. The video above also discusses past engagements with the police. They were never helpful, only polite (to a point).

This saga is far from over. We’ve already escalated the matter today at noon.

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.

Video download link | md5sum 9626365333766dabc4d34d12ae13a6a6
Getting Down to Arrests, Compensation, Gates NDA
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0

Summary: The crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ are believed to be investigated right now, but it is important to note just how much effort is required — even some connections — to get things rolling and actually get law enforcers to do their job rather than send bot messages acknowledging the receipt of something never handled by an actual person

THE video above is an outline or an overview of some recent developments in the quest to hold Sirius ‘Open Source’ management accountable for very serious crimes. The clients included very high-profile government departments, so we don’t expect this to be easy. Generally speaking, the government tends to protect itself from accountability or from ‘embarrassment’, perhaps even prosecution and jail time. In this case, there are many victims and they’re GNU/Linux system administrators, sometimes programmers too. We expect this series to last until the end of the year, maybe even next year, judging by how slowly “the system” is moving, both by intention and by design. We’ll document the failings and the shortcomings of this system. We’ve seen similar things in the EU when it comes to EPO corruption.

See disclaimer below^* regarding this seemingly daring metaphor

Summary: Just 4 hours after escalating the matter of Sirius ‘Open Source’ fraud to its (previously) biggest client, which oversees police budget, the Economic Crime Victim Contact Unit (VCoA) got in touch with me regarding my Action Fraud crime report (many victims; not handled for almost 10 weeks despite escalation to my Member of Parliament), saying they “offer free [editor’s note: taxpayer-funded actually] help and advice to people who have been the victims of fraud and cyber-crime to try to help prevent them from becoming a repeat victim.” But we need action, we need law enforcement, not “advice” (action is well overdue, several months already).

MORE than a month ago I received an “(in)action fraud” message that was timed exactly 4 weeks after its submission (weekend outside working hours), specifying nothing about my crime report. I’m certain it was automated. Nobody bothered looking into that and it seems endemic at Action Fraud (it has been even worse for some; they’re literally being insulted by Action Fraud; the cops are attacking the victims of crime!^** ). On Monday I received the following after Greater London Authority (London Municipality) got contacted, so it’s safe to assume someone there nudged the police to stop ignoring victims of crimes committed against staff of London Municipality (by contract; we worked on their system for many years).

Here’s a portion of what they sent (some redaction applied) and my response:

Action Fraud Report

ECONOMIC CRIME VICTIM CONTACT UNIT (VCoA)

To: Roy Schestowitz

The Economic Crime Victim Contact Unit (VCoA) is part of the Action Fraud National Fraud and Cyber Reporting Centre service. We deliver a support service for victims of fraud and cyber-crime in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

We offer free help and advice to people who have been the victims of fraud and cyber-crime to try to help prevent them from becoming a repeat victim. We do not investigate crime and we cannot assist in the recovery of any losses. We will never ask you for anything as our purpose is to provide information, help and guidance.

We have received a referral in relation to the report you made to Action Fraud, crime reference number [redacted] refers.

A serious crime was committed. It was committed not just against myself but also against my colleagues. It went on for years. We’re not gullible, we are well-educated people who are literate in this domain. There was a chain of enablers in this crime. The legitimacy came from various separate factors, including some which are connected to the government. I can elaborate on this as the need arises.

The perpetrators of the crime have names. They have home addresses. You know where they live. They need to be interrogated and held accountable. The evidence is overwhelming and they do not deny the crime was committed.

If somebody gets raped, you don’t simply lecture them on how not to become “repeat victim”, you go out there and apprehend the rapist. Here too, a crime was committed, repeatedly, for years, against many people. They only found out about it this year, as there was obstruction and stonewalling, including from pension providers. The accountants and IFA refuse to even answer queries about it. They may be culpable too.

Anything short of action from Action Fraud would seem inadequate. I first contacted the police back in March after it got confirmed to me that a crime had been committed. I am not a law enforcer, so the role of the police forces is crucial.

We’re almost in July already. Is it considered normal for a case to take almost 4 months from initial report to action? You say you “do not investigate crime”, so who will investigate it and when? When will action be taken?

The message from the Economic Crime Victim Contact Unit (VCoA) — not from Action Fraud — came out of the blue as a reaction to escalation to Greater London Authority, GLA. In fact, only 4 hours passed since I contacted GLA on the matter. So it seems that in order to progress these things one needs to have special connections, e.g. working for GLA as a contractor for nearly a decade.

They have not even responded since then. Not a word. They have my postal address, my phone number, my E-mails.

But not a word. My response to them did not bounce, so it’s safe to assume they received it.

It also worries me that they got a person to respond to me only after months of efforts, including an escalation to my Member of Parliament, a former client (that it in charge of police budget), and public shaming. Not many people have time and capacity to do this. Some are too busy working all day long and are impatient, moody, helpless, and utterly frustrated.

How to get UK Action Fraud to take “affirmative action” against crime^***? I can only speak from my own experience.

It goes like this:

Contact with crime report/evidence, wait 4 weeks, then escalate to MP, wait 4 weeks, then escalate to London’s authorities, then they might escalate to City of London Police (if you worked for London’s authorities) and there MIGHT be a chance of them actually taking action. Ridiculous.

If this is how law enforcement works here (or elsewhere^****), then I am deeply concerned. This is the blueprint for monarchy-type regimes with immunity and impunity, where police exists only as a sort of “formality”.
_____
^* Regarding the skirt thing, the metaphor is not mine but Rianne’s as she found their language rather patronising and offensive. “Not sure the skirt metaphor helps,” one person remarked, as “maybe it is better to just say right out that the cops are engaged in victim blaming” and one “might then add that they are patronising and offensive, too, in addition to blaming the victims, as it appears standard operating procedure for them across a wide range of crime categories.”

^** Remember the undercover investigation of Action Fraud, which was accused of insulting victims instead of helping them. Inadequate training and poor recruitment can lead to such low standards of response. This needs to become widespread knowledge and even mainstream TV (public broadcasting) took note of it in recent years.

^*** Cops should really be more than just some folks in uniform with a public-facing Web site. Work needs to be done, otherwise crime flourishes and criminals are emboldened to commit more crime, seeing they suffer no consequences. They become “repeat criminal“.

^**** As we stated some hours ago, this isn’t some “uniquely British” thing. As Ryan from Illinois (United States) recalls: “You might mention that while the police had no time to take a report of Maricel’s murder-for-hire scheme and insurance fraud, they had plenty of time to come out and frame me for being the responsible party in a car accident, and they even cited a law and showed a diagram of the accident that showed I did nothing wrong. I still had to pay $700 to fix my car and $400 for a traffic lawyer to beat the ticket. They let people who were on parole in another state that didn’t have a driver’s license or any form of insurance go. They have plenty of time to come out and frame people they don’t like. Maybe the Waukegan police saw that I was gay (there with my spouse) and shoved the ticket in my hand and laughed. Maybe they really are that stupid. Who knows? When you call the police and they show up, they’re as dangerous to you as they are to anyone else. They may take no action against the criminal and frame you while they’re there. They seem to have a rule in Waukegan that every time there’s an accident, someone gets a ticket. It’s a way for them to make money. You should see how the traffic courts work here. Boom boom boom. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a day in ticket revenue. Everyone pleading guilty to something to avoid their insurance going up. The judge doesn’t even pretend to care if any of them have done something wrong or they just want it to stop. It’s like criminal court only worse. I think I was the only one to fight them and they were so unprepared to stop and handle it that they actually let me go.”

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).