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Fintech firm fighting organised crime

BY CAROLINE MIDDLETON GORDON25 October, 2019

Glasgow-based fintech Altia-ABM is providing software that will help the authorities in Peru fight financial crime.

The Ministerio Publico has adopted the company’s suite of financial investigation and analysis software to speed up complex financial investigations and strengthen its prosecutions service.

The Ministry, based in the country’s capital Lima, is equivalent to the Scottish Crown Office or the English Crown Prosecution Service but with added responsibility for tax investigations and asset recovery.

It handles thousands of cases per year, including fraud perpetrated by organised criminal gangs, plus money laundering and tax evasion. The department also brings prosecutions for these crimes.

Altia-ABM sent a team to Latin America to help its customers get the maximum benefit from its Investigation Toolkit and Financial Analysis Toolbar.

Lucía Nuñovero, manager of the Office for Strategic Criminal Analysis at the Ministerio Publico, says: “We chose Investigation Toolkit and Financial Analysis Toolbar due to Altia-ABM’s specialised focus on investigations management and because the products were recommended by the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service, based on their long relationship with Altia-ABM.

“The new software enables us to optimise time spent by prosecutors and administrative staff and ensure that a higher proportion of cases result in a prosecution.

“In the past, we have not been able to automate processes and have had to deal with huge volumes of paper-based data.

“The technology enables us to speed up our investigations, use our staff’s capabilities more effectively and create a robust, evidence-based case which is far more likely to result in a conviction.

“To be more specific, it allows us to reduce by a considerable amount the time spent on organised crime cases that involve more than 30 or 40 suspects.

“For instance, investigations like these often take more than five months and involve several of our analysts to process the information. By using this software, we can achieve a far more accurate result in just a month or six weeks.”

 

Rob Sinclair, Marguerite Clark, Vasil Simeonov and Mariangela Castillo from Altia-ABM, fintech company

Rob Sinclair, Marguerite Clark, Vasil Simeonov and Mariangela Castillo from Altia-ABM

Rob Sinclair, chief operations officer for Altia-ABM, said: “The Ministerio Publico has adopted best practice across its operations and is a leader in the use of technology to ensure its investigations are effective and efficient. We are delighted that they are using Altia-ABM products going forward.

“This contract builds on our existing partnership with the National Crime Agency in the UK. Originally, the NCA asked us to work with their network of international liaison officers to help combat serious and organised crime worldwide, which has a devastating impact in the UK.

“As part of this brief, we began supplying software and training investigators in Peru and Colombia over two years ago. Since then, we have continued to work with law enforcement agencies and government departments to assist in their drive towards greater efficiency.

“We now have two reseller partners in the region and have translated our financial investigation products into Spanish, in addition to providing on-the-ground training and support to customers on an ongoing basis.

“We are now in discussion with organisations such as the Peruvian Police and the Unidad de Inteligencia Financiera, who have expressed an interest in our services.”

Investigation Toolkit ensures accuracy and consistency in financial investigations, offering significant time savings compared with manual approaches.

Financial Analysis Toolbar speeds up the process of interrogating financial data. It simplifies the process of extracting evidence from a portfolio of financial data, based on pre-set queries.