Sophisticated financial frauds are increasingly being perpetrated on unsuspecting victims across national boundaries. With seamless global transfers of funds, fraudsters can instantaneously steal, hide and transfer liquid assets inside financial institutions across the globe. They can plunder, then launder and distribute their illegal proceeds in multiple offshore locations, including secrecy havens.

Often, by the time the unwitting victim suspects a fraud has taken place, the trail has gone cold and the fraudsters have disappeared. Clearly, isolated victims are no match for teams of well-funded, professional criminals aided and abetted by cyber stealth and bank secrecy laws. And, fraudsters absolutely count on these factors to evade justice.

Fraud victims are often confused and not sure what to do next or who they can turn to for help. They will quickly find that fraud is a low priority for law enforcement, especially seeking compensation for the victims. Furthermore, to recover assets, time is of the essence, and setting up an ad hoc international team of asset recovery professionals in jurisdictions that are regarded by many as exotic more often than not proves to be an ineffective and costly nightmare.

In the early 1980s, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the world business organization headquartered in Paris with offices in 90 countries, set up three services to combat commercial crime, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), the Counterfeiting Intelligence Bureau (CIB), and the Financial Investigation Bureau (FIB), which are coordinated by the ICC Commercial Crime Services.

Recognizing fraud’s increasing sophistication, speed and global dimensions, in 2004 the International Chamber of Commerce complemented those specialized anti-crime services by founding FraudNet, an international network of lawyers specializing in fraud recovery. The services of FraudNet are not only available to the International Chamber of Commerce members, but also to the general public.

Organized and operating under the auspices of the Commercial Crime Services of the International Chamber of Commerce, FraudNet is a 24/7 international rapid deployment force that pries open the vault of bank secrecy and helps victims locate and recover their stolen assets with the same cyberpowered speed, stealth, reach and proficiency as the most sophisticated global fraud network.

Fraudsters meet their match in FraudNet’s experienced team of civil asset recovery lawyers, investigators and forensic accountants, who creatively wield their own sophisticated legal and investigative tools to trace and seize stolen assets wherever located.

FraudNet members have already recovered hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of individuals, corporations and national governments victimized by fraud and grand corruption schemes. Since its inception in 2004, FraudNet has worked for the governments of the United Kingdom, Nigeria, Brazil, Guatemala, Trinidad and Tobago, and Antigua and Barbuda, among others. Our specialized network of legal counsel for transnational asset location and recovery has now expanded to include 69 members in 53 countries. FraudNet has global reach.

Today, members of FraudNet are able to take rapid, coordinated, and focused action on behalf of fraud victims in most jurisdictions throughout the world. What amounts to a private asset recovery rapid deployment force reaches into jurisdictions where fraud detection and redress can be a legal minefield, and where the chances of successful asset recovery have historically been thought to be slim.

Following strict criteria set by its member-elected Standards and Procedures Committee, FraudNet seeks to select one highly skilled and experienced asset recovery lawyer for every country, although some larger or multilingual countries, like the United Kingdom, the United States, Brazil and Switzerland, have multiple FraudNet lawyers. The ultimate goal is to ensure a jurisdictional entry point and a uniquely qualified local representative in every country, providing victims with access to a seamless global, multi-jurisdictional task force of hand-picked experts.

FraudNet is a geographically expansive, but highly select network of world-class asset recovery lawyers. Except for the larger countries noted above, only the top specialist in each nation with a distinguished record in asset tracing and recovery is invited to become FraudNet’s exclusive member in that country. FraudNet’s members are individual lawyers, not entire firms, and membership is both personal and non- transferable.

Members are required to govern themselves according to rigorous professional standards and rules enforced by FraudNet’s self-governing Secretariat, through its elected Standards and Practices Committee.

FraudNet’s Standards and Procedures Committee, operating under the aegis of the FraudNet Secretariat of the Commercial Crime Services of the International Chamber of Commerce, diligently identifies and vets each proposed FraudNet member candidate by checking their background and references and conducting lawyer and client interviews.

In this way, FraudNet brings the collective reputation and expertise of the world’s foremost anti-fraud lawyer network to bear in order to ensure exceptional, effective and ethical client service at all times by each of our individual members.

FraudNet also delivers seamless team coordination based on experienced cross-border cooperation in prior cases, allowing the team to tailor a specific global legal strategy for each client matter that takes into account the strength and weaknesses of specific legal remedies in each concerned jurisdiction.

FraudNet members meet twice a year to review and discuss current developments and fraud trends. They also frequently present their findings at conferences around the world, and share their knowledge and expertise with law enforcement and governmental agencies fighting fraud.

In 2009, FraudNet launched the publication of the FraudNet Compendium: Asset Tracing and Recovery, which provides a comprehensive summary of asset tracking and recovery topics and gives a country-by-country analysis of asset recovery tools in targeted countries.

Creative fee arrangements, including full and blended contingency arrangements, may be considered in appropriate circumstances. Additionally, FraudNet has access to sources that may finance investigation and recovery efforts in certain situations.

FraudNet was designed around the concept that international fraud and corruption require concerted, multi-jurisdictional, private expertise and action over and above traditional law enforcement. The challenge with relying on law enforcement is not their lack of preparation, but rather, that the authorities’ focus is on punishment of the criminal and occasionally forfeiture of crime proceeds, not on reparation for the victim. Furthermore, law enforcement’s international reach is constrained by the formalities of international law. Finally, although well prepared, most law enforcement agencies lack the resources to react quickly enough to freeze assets before they are transferred beyond the authorities’ jurisdiction.

Therefore, even though fraud and corruption are criminal acts, merely relying on the actions of the authorities is not enough to obtain full or significant compensation for victims.Fortunately, this is the singular and specialized focus of FraudNet teams that not only locate and recover fraud proceeds, but also pursue replacement assets by obtaining compensation from financial institutions and other professionals who may be held liable for breach of fiduciary and other duties under the law. FraudNet teams utilize all available and appropriate legal remedies at their disposal, which, depending on the jurisdiction, may be exclusively civil remedies, or include suing for damages in criminal proceedings or, in many cases, an international blend of civil and criminal remedies.

As soon as he or she accepts a case, the FraudNet lead lawyer assembles a strategic transnational team from within the network to meet the particular investigative and recovery challenges presented. Next, the client’s handpicked team promptly organizes a forensic investigation, and then selects the optimum jurisdiction to commence court proceedings, whenever and wherever necessary.

Each selected FraudNet team moves quickly and diligently using specialized disclosure, gag and seal, and investigative orders (e.g., 28 USC 1782 and Anton Piller/Banker’s Trust Orders). With their specialized arsenal of civil remedies and procedural tradecraft, FraudNet lawyers can force third-party financial institutions where assets are hidden to disclose client information, and do so secretly, without tipping off the targeted fraudsters. Other civil court orders grant FraudNet teams police-like powers to obtain documents and enter and search premises to retrieve critical information about the transfer and current location of fraudulently obtained assets. In jurisdictions where civil remedies do not exist, FraudNet teams work cooperatively with law enforcement authorities to freeze local assets and obtain evidence regarding the location of assets in other jurisdictions, for use in civil or criminal proceedings by other members of the team.

After an investigation is successfully concluded, the FraudNet team takes concerted action to freeze the target’s assets across the globe in multiple, simultaneous civil court actions. FraudNet lawyers also use injunctions or freeze orders to prevent fraudsters and their accomplices from selling assets before they can be liquidated to satisfy victims’ claims.

ICC Commercial Crime Services (CCS) is the anti-crime arm of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). Based in the United Kingdom, CCS is a membership organisation tasked with combating all forms of commercial crime. In addition to FraudNet, CCS comprises three specialised Bureaux: the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), dedicated to the prevention of trade finance, maritime, transport and trade fraud and malpractice, the Financial Investigation Bureau (FIB), which provides commercial banks, the financial services sector and investors with a range of ‘Know Your Customer' (KYC), financial fraud and anti-money laundering services that help members balance risk against reward and avoid becoming the victims of financial scams, the Counterfeiting Intelligence Bureau (CIB), which is one of the world's leading organisations dedicated to combating the counterfeiting of products and documents, protecting the integrity of intellectual property and brands, and preventing copyright abuse.