5 ms·

Isn't this a bit late? Surely everything incriminating has been burned by now? And also, how much is even stored locally on paper these days? I wonder how much

by tormeh 8y ago

Isn't this a bit late? Surely everything incriminating has been burned by now? And also, how much is even stored locally on paper these days? I wonder how much sense these kinds of razzias still make.

seanhunter 8y ago
Absolutely scary amounts of the information associated with private wealth management is still paper-based. Secondly, banks have huge internal complexity of systems and limited ability to coordinate people. Whether or not DB were doing this, it's highly likely there is a lot of evidence.
- elliekelly 8y ago
  >Absolutely scary amounts of the information associated with private wealth management is still paper-based. Can confirm. I was an AML Officer for a pretty substantial bank that focused on private wealth management. The lack of technology would truly horrify most HN readers. For example, the height of our technology was our "intranet" - a shared excel file with hyperlinks to other files on the shared drive.
  - onetimemanytime 8y ago
    A feature, not a bug: If you want to cheat the state, technology is your worst enemy. Paper trail too
    - elliekelly 8y ago
      You know that's very true. If you can't present a file because it's "lost" (which happened not infrequently) the regulators don't know whether you've done your due diligence or not and you get a slap on the wrist for deficient paperwork. On the other hand, if your files demonstrate inadequate due diligence you're in for quite a bit of trouble.
lucozade 8y ago
> Isn't this a bit late? If the culprits knew that there was information about their activities in the papers and stopped at that time then yes, it's a bit late. Nothing in the article say that though. > how much is even stored locally on paper these days? Depends, the article also says the police took electronic data. My guess is that there's likely to be a reasonable amount of both worth searching.
chopin 8y ago
Paper would be the easy part (to destroy). The hard part is electronic data. I work in a large Enterprise, no chance that even a simple email would vanish completely (it's definitely on several backup servers, tapes and whatnot I have no access to).
- CaptainZapp 8y ago
  Add to this that financial institutions have very stringent regulatory requirements about archiving all their communications, including chat and email. Trying to game those archives would get them into so much hot water with just about any regulator that I can't really imagine it. Any bank may have dodgy employees that try to game the system. But without institutional support by a multitude of people and departments you could never erase such data. And I just don't see that happening.
pjc50 8y ago
Trying to destroy electronic records in a bank is so much a red flag that it would expose the person attempting it immediately. And then you'd find another copy somewhere. The key to a successful fraud is usually producing more records in order to make something seem legit.
johannes1234321 8y ago
Such a search usually works by "please provide us with all relevant documents and copies of data" and only to a small degree by officers opening cabinets and taking whatever they find. If the confiscated documents show that large parts are missing or manipulated the charges for not complying with rules on record keeping and the negative impression on the main case are typically worse for the organization than the harm by those bad documents. For individuals who might be responsible the interests might be different - they won't like documents referring to them specifically. And also mind: The authorities are also required to evaluate documents in benefit of the defendant, thus to some degree there is self-interest to share stuff for that reason.
matt4077 8y ago
Matt Levine has a fun take on this: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-29/watch-out-for-fake-newsletters https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-29/watch-... (Search “raid”)

by tormeh 8y ago

seanhunter 8y ago

Absolutely scary amounts of the information associated with private wealth management is still paper-based. Secondly, banks have huge internal complexity of systems and limited ability to coordinate people. Whether or not DB were doing this, it's highly likely there is a lot of evidence.

elliekelly 8y ago
>Absolutely scary amounts of the information associated with private wealth management is still paper-based. Can confirm. I was an AML Officer for a pretty substantial bank that focused on private wealth management. The lack of technology would truly horrify most HN readers. For example, the height of our technology was our "intranet" - a shared excel file with hyperlinks to other files on the shared drive.
- onetimemanytime 8y ago
  A feature, not a bug: If you want to cheat the state, technology is your worst enemy. Paper trail too
  - elliekelly 8y ago
    You know that's very true. If you can't present a file because it's "lost" (which happened not infrequently) the regulators don't know whether you've done your due diligence or not and you get a slap on the wrist for deficient paperwork. On the other hand, if your files demonstrate inadequate due diligence you're in for quite a bit of trouble.

lucozade 8y ago

> Isn't this a bit late? If the culprits knew that there was information about their activities in the papers and stopped at that time then yes, it's a bit late. Nothing in the article say that though. > how much is even stored locally on paper these days? Depends, the article also says the police took electronic data. My guess is that there's likely to be a reasonable amount of both worth searching.

chopin 8y ago

Paper would be the easy part (to destroy). The hard part is electronic data. I work in a large Enterprise, no chance that even a simple email would vanish completely (it's definitely on several backup servers, tapes and whatnot I have no access to).

CaptainZapp 8y ago
Add to this that financial institutions have very stringent regulatory requirements about archiving all their communications, including chat and email. Trying to game those archives would get them into so much hot water with just about any regulator that I can't really imagine it. Any bank may have dodgy employees that try to game the system. But without institutional support by a multitude of people and departments you could never erase such data. And I just don't see that happening.

pjc50 8y ago

Trying to destroy electronic records in a bank is so much a red flag that it would expose the person attempting it immediately. And then you'd find another copy somewhere. The key to a successful fraud is usually producing more records in order to make something seem legit.

johannes1234321 8y ago

Such a search usually works by "please provide us with all relevant documents and copies of data" and only to a small degree by officers opening cabinets and taking whatever they find. If the confiscated documents show that large parts are missing or manipulated the charges for not complying with rules on record keeping and the negative impression on the main case are typically worse for the organization than the harm by those bad documents. For individuals who might be responsible the interests might be different - they won't like documents referring to them specifically. And also mind: The authorities are also required to evaluate documents in benefit of the defendant, thus to some degree there is self-interest to share stuff for that reason.

matt4077 8y ago

Matt Levine has a fun take on this: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-29/watch-out-for-fake-newsletters https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-29/watch-... (Search “raid”)