“Any organisation that prioritises being within the rules over doing the right thing will not stand up to scrutiny for long.”
– Andrew Bailey, FCA Annual Public Meeting, July 2019
While victims of pension fraud pleaded for justice, the silence from Britain’s top regulators grew louder. What began as isolated complaints has become a national disgrace: a systemic failure where the evidence of fraud grew—and so did the number of senior officials jumping ship.
This is a chronicle not just of neglect, but of calculated evasion and complicity.
🧱 The Mounting Evidence
For over a decade, whistleblowers and victims—like Paul Birch—have submitted thousands of documents to the FCA, SFO, and HMRC, outlining:
- Fraudulent pension transfers
- Unregulated advisers receiving business from regulated firms
- Trustees and insurers facilitating illegal commissions
- Evidence of money laundering, tax evasion, and international misconduct
- Memoranda of Understanding ignored
The response? Dismissive letters, silence, or a passing of the buck between agencies.
🔒 Who Knew—and Did Nothing
Sara Lawson KC – Former General Counsel, SFO
- Ignored repeated emails addressed directly to her (April 2024)
- Oversaw SFO refusal to engage on Case 16242, despite credible evidence of industrial-scale fraud
- Left her role quietly to rejoin private chambers at Mayfair Place in 2025
Would she now represent the very victims she once ignored? She certainly knows where the bodies are buried.
Lisa Osofsky – Former Director, SFO
- Received over 100 emails in 2023 detailing criminal conduct—no reply, no action
- Left the SFO amid scandal after her phone was deleted during a disclosure case
- Oversaw a tenure plagued by poor prosecutions and public mistrust
The watchdog deleted its own memory. Literally.
Therese Chambers – FCA Co-Director of Enforcement
- Signed the MoU with Sara Lawson, pledging collaboration on fraud
- Copied on multiple high-level complaints about QROPS fraud, but never replied
- Continues to ignore evidence showing AIM-listed firms profited off the back of stolen pensions
Signing MoUs means nothing when victims remain unheard and harm goes unpunished.
Nikhil Rathi – CEO, FCA
- Repeatedly copied on documented evidence of cross-border fraud
- Oversaw the FCA’s refusal to blacklist known rogue operators
- Allowed the sale of implicated firms (e.g., Mattioli Woods) during active litigation
When reputational risk trumps regulatory duty, consumers lose.
Jim Harra – CEO, HMRC
- Advised to liaise with FCA and SFO under MoUs—no evidence this occurred
- Continued listing QROPS providers with known misconduct histories
- Repeatedly ignored calls to investigate criminal tax abuse in pension schemes
If this is how HMRC treats fraud victims, what faith can anyone have in oversight?
🚨 What This All Points To
This isn’t incompetence. It’s a pattern:
- Officials stonewalling complaints
- Legal silence where statutory duties should speak
- Delays in courts while assets are moved offshore
- Executives resigning before scrutiny takes hold
- MoUs that exist only for PR optics
And still—not a single enforcement action.
🔎 ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
Victims like Paul Birch have done what regulators refused to do: forensically trace the money, compile the evidence, expose the networks. Instead of support, they’ve faced indifference—and obstruction.
We demand:
- A Parliamentary inquiry into regulatory negligence
- Enforcement of the Victims’ Code
- A public reckoning for officials who failed their duties
- Reinstatement of meaningful public protection from financial predators
📢 What You Can Do
🔗 Share this article
📧 Write to your MP
📝 Sign the petition for a public inquiry
📣 Join the Transparency Task Force’s call to Parliament
This isn’t just about pensions. It’s about the integrity of our institutions.
If the regulators won’t uphold the rule of law, who will?
About Get SAFE
Get SAFE (Support After Financial Exploitation) was born from a simple truth: too many victims of financial abuse are left to suffer in silence.
We exist in memory of Ian Davis—for the ones who did everything right, only to be failed by the systems they trusted. We know that behind every vanished pension, every ignored complaint, and every stonewalled letter is a person—frightened, exhausted, and too often alone.
Get SAFE offers more than sympathy. We offer structure, support, and solidarity.
We provide a voice where there’s been silence, and clarity where there’s been confusion.
We stand beside those who have been exploited, not just to help them recover—but to help them reclaim their story and rebuild their future.
Because financial justice is not a luxury.
It’s a human right.
If you or someone you know has been affected by financial exploitation, we are here.
You are not alone.
Learn more at: Get SAFE (Support After Financial Exploitation).
Academy of Life Planning 
🔁 For those following this investigation:
Paul Birch has just shared another tranche of evidence—this time raising serious questions about the SFO’s refusal to investigate the MCTML QROPS pension fraud, despite clear UK links.
The email details:
This isn’t just administrative oversight—it’s a systemic refusal to uphold statutory duties across borders.
📌 We’re cataloguing each ignored warning and each deflection. Justice delayed is justice denied—and we won’t stop documenting until accountability is delivered.
#QROPS #PensionFraud #FCA #SFO #MFSA #Barclays #RegulatoryCapture #FinancialJustice #TransparencyTaskForce #AoLP
🔁 Update for the record:
Paul Birch has uncovered a key email in his correspondence—lamenting the SFO’s lack of acknowledgment after being sent 101 emails detailing multi-jurisdictional pension fraud, offshore shell companies, and the use of Isle of Man Barclays accounts.
What makes this even more troubling: under Lisa Osofsky’s leadership, the SFO has repeatedly come under fire:
These systemic failures—when combined with the SFO and FCA ignoring victim evidence—suggest a severe breakdown of UK financial crime enforcement.
📌 Transparency and accountability demand more than process—they demand action.
#SFO #LisaOsofsky #Unaoil #ENRC #FinancialCrime #PensionFraud #TransparencyTaskForce #AoLP
📩 For those following the case:
Paul Birch has now recovered and shared his original email to the SFO’s General Counsel, Sara Lawson KC, dated 22 April 2024.
In it, he highlights that 94 emails to the SFO over 12 months went completely unanswered—not even an acknowledgment. The silence from multiple senior officials suggests more than just delay. It echoes the troubling pattern exposed in the Post Office Inquiry: don’t put anything in writing that might “cause trouble.”
If regulatory silence is being guided by legal containment strategies, we must ask—who are our regulators really protecting?
This isn’t just non-response.
It’s institutional abandonment.
And we’re not staying silent.
#SFO #FCA #RegulatorySilence #FinancialJustice #PostOfficeScandal #QROPS #PensionFraud #TransparencyTaskForce #Accountability #EnoughIsEnough #AoLP