Economic crime is big business – and it’s your money they’re using

The City likes to use three letters: ‘OPM’, writes Chris Blackhurst. They stand for ‘other people’s money’. And in the eyes of many traders, dealers, brokers, advisers, they represent the best abbreviation on the planet, one that disguises all manner of bad behaviour

HSBC was fined $1.8bn (£1.4bn) for facilitating the laundering of money by the Mexican Sinaloa drugs cartel (PA Wire)

This week found me in Cambridge, at the annual International Symposium on Economic Crime, held at Jesus College.

Now in its 40th year, what began with a university don, Professor Barry Rider, bringing together a group of like-minded individuals to discuss the damage wreaked by fraud and money laundering, and how countries should work closer together to try and combat the perpetrators, has grown into a unique event.

Rider used to lecture me in law, and he allowed me to attend as an observer. My first one, in 1987, comprised 30 people – academics, lawyers, senior police officers, legislators – sitting in a room above the old college bar.