By Karen Freifeld
NEW YORK, Jan 17 (Reuters) – New York Attorney General Eric
Schneiderman has created a new bureau to prosecute large-scale
financial crimes.
The newly formed Criminal Enforcement and Financial Crimes
Bureau will “ferret out the bad actors in our critically
important financial sector in order to protect our economy and
investors,” Schneiderman said in a statement on Friday.
The unit is a new push by the New York attorney general to
criminally punish those behind complex financial crimes. It
comes after repeated public criticism that few individuals have
been held responsible for misconduct that led to the 2008
financial crisis.
The bureau will tackle crimes in banks and other financial
institutions, securities and investment schemes, money
laundering, tax crimes, mortgage fraud, and insurance fraud,
according to the office.
“We’re going to focus not just on institutions but on
individuals,” Gary Fishman, the newly appointed head of the
unit, told Reuters.
Fishman, a veteran prosecutor with more than 15 years
experience, joined the attorney general’s office in 2012. Before
that, he was a deputy in the major economic crimes bureau of the
Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
A Financial Intelligence Section within the bureau will
investigate and track suspicious activity reports and other data
released by financial institutions to identify trends.
Schneiderman already has an investor protection bureau that
brings civil cases. That unit filed a case against JPMorgan
Chase & Co in 2012 over mortgage-backed securities that
recently resulted in a payment of more than $600 million as part
of the bank’s $13 billion settlement with U.S. authorities.
Last year, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance also
formed a unit to review suspicious activity reports and other
data to find illegal financial activities.
(Reporting By Karen Freifeld; Editing by Chris Reese)
