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.

‘VE just checked the numbers ONS released only a few minutes ago. Again, as before, the total number of deaths in England and Wales this year is about 1,000 higher for the latest week on record than in the same week before COVID-19 broke out. That’s an increase of more than 10% in 4 years.

2019:

2023:

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 investigation of Sirius ‘Open Source’ and any remedial actions for the crimes committed

1. The perpetrators of the fraud all need to be held accountable. This may also mean extradition and arrests. Several people were aware if not directly involved, possibly not limited to Sirius management but also the IFA and the accountants (without their active or passive cooperation it would not work; they legitimised this fraud).
2. The money which got stolen from all the staff needs to be recovered; it is expected the company will claim that there’s no money left, having emptied accounts and maybe hid the money somewhere far away, maybe under other people’s names, possibly in anticipation of the fallout as soon as victims find out. This step may require subpoenas (to unveil the list of victims, then get in touch to inform them one by one).
3. Compensation to Rianne and myself, as we were both workers who were mistreated on numerous different grounds (as above, the company may pretend that it cannot afford this). Financial accountability for this elaborate embezzlement can be passed outwards as deep-pocketed facilitators existed^*.
4. Unseal the non-disclosure agreement signed with the Gates Foundation in 2019. The timing suggests a correlation with sham staff contracts and two new shell companies, one in Washington State, not far from the Gates Foundation; this also coincided with Techrights pursuing nearly 3,000 pages from police in Washington State — those pages were eventually received from Seattle police^* and did in fact confirm an arrest for pedophilia at the home of Bill and Melinda Gates.

______
^* It is our knowledge and understanding that the company began hiding behind its accountant (I confronted the CEO about the change of address over the telephone — a very long phonecall — this past October or a day after it had happened). The company has an address at the heart and centre of London. Even its shell has the same address in London. We understand that the City of London Police is now involved (we’ve receive formal communications from the City of London Police) and we’ve also heard from someone who reckons the wheels are in motion at the police, for reasons we shall cover in the future. The City of London Police does have the powers to locate and apprehend these people. I am just a citizen, I’m not a cop, and I’ve asked the police since March to take action (this weekend is July already). There are many victims here, not just me. Noticed we’ve all along refrained from naming the perpetrators because we don’t know how many of them there are and we don’t want to falsely accuse those who are merely suspects.

^** Case Investigation Report: 2014-22121 (Seattle Police Dept. [1, 2])

AM glad to say that, according to WHO, it’s all over. Months ago it declared the “end” of the pandemic. But according to this morning’s data from ONS, which is complete data (not just a sub-sample), a lot of Brits are dying.

Here are 2015-2019 deaths:

Compare to this year’s latest on record (analogous weeks):

So from 9.4k a week we went up to 10.7k. All this in just 4 years. 14% increase. Perfectly normal…