Undercover Operations and White Collar Crime
| Date | 01 March 1994 |
| Pages | 150-159 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb025644 |
| Published date | 01 March 1994 |
| Author | Helen Parry,Susan Scott Hunt |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & finance |
Undercover Operations and White Collar
Crime
Helen Parry and Susan Scott Hunt
Helen Parry
is a senior lecturer in law at London
Guildhall University specialising in
business crime. She was formerly
regulatory manager at the International
Commodities Clearing House. She is the
author of several publications and joint
editor of a recent book on futures trading
law. She is a member of the Editorial
Board of Journal of Asset Protection and
Financial Crime.
Susan Scott Hunt
is a lecturer in law at the University of
East London and was formerly a district
attorney in New Orleans. She will be
joining solicitors Theodore Goddard in
September 1994.
ABSTRACT
Undercover policing operations are on the
increase in the UK and the USA and ques-
tions surrounding the judicial and admini-
strative controls of such operations in the
field of white collar crime investigations
need to be addressed. This paper considers
recent case examples involving such
methods, looking in particular at recent
developments in the law relating to entrap-
ment and agents provocateurs and also at
the differing regimes of administrative
con-
trol in the UK and USA.
While some US developments point to a
restriction on the scope of undercover
operations, the UK courts and European
Court of Human Rights have been providing
judicial backing to such police methods.
'In February 1987, in order to explore
making deposits in Panama through
an international bank, Agent Mazur
opened an account at the Tampa
Branch of the Bank of Credit and
Commerce International. Agent
Mazur selected BCCI Tampa strictly
for its convenience having seen a sign
advertising BCCI's international ser-
vices ... Argudo (an officer of the
bank) recommended that Agent
Mazur's clients open accounts at
BCCI Panama for security purposes
because there was no Treaty between
the USA and Panama that would
allow agencies of the United States to
obtain banking records... After
Argudo's unsolicited comments,
undercover operation personnel
decided to investigate whether BCCI
bankers were involved in criminal
activity.'
Circuit Judge Fay in the USA,
Plaintiff-
Appellee v Amjad Awan, Akbar
A.
Bilgrami,
Sibte Hassan, Syed Aftab Hussein, Ian
Howard, Defendants-Appellants1
150
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