But former RCMP officer and Toronto-based corporate crime consultant Chris] Mathers questioned whether public money should be spent to investigate an alleged fraud that he said the bank should have avoided by properly vetting mortgage applications. He blamed the banks for creating a climate in which mortgage fraud thrives.
"The banks are fighting tooth and nail with each other to get this kind of mortgage business," he said. "They are cutting corners and so because they cut corners, they become victims of fraud."
So Tory MP Devinder Shory dodges one bullet. There are still questions he needs to answer, however.
4 comments:
So this is kind of a "blame the victim"....
There is some merit in the RCMP argument. If I were to make my home wide open to burglars by leaving doors unlocked and windows open, should I expect a rigorous police investigation if I got robbed?
The problem here, though, is that losses from these types of frauds are simply passed on the the consumer. We all pay for the banks' sloppy security.
That said, the optics of the feds refusing to investigate and prosecute white collar crime is not good. If a large gang of masked bank robbers went into BMO's headquarters and made off with $30,000,000, it would be Canada's crime of the century and you can bet the RCMP would be following up... even if BMO had insufficient security in place.
Actually JB you should expect a rigorous police investigation. There is no contributory apportionment in crime between victim and offender. That much got settled when we stopped blaming rape victims for 'provocative' clothes and acts.
If crimes were committed the cops aren't working 'for' the victim but on behalf of society to apprehend the offender and bring him before the criminal justice system for trial and punishment.
We've given law enforcement far too much discretion and autonomy in several areas for much too long.
When a police force says they can't be bothered to vigorously investigate a crime the cops are determining what is a crime and when a crime is worthy of their attention. Sorry, that's simply not their call.
I knew someone who called the police to report that an employee had stolen some money from him by fraud, maybe $10,000; and the police asked 'Was the amount stolen over $100,000?' (or something like that). The implication being that they would prefer to spend time going after big thieves than petty thieves, given that they have limited time to investigate crimes.
In this case, maybe the amount of time required to investigate would cost more than the amount stolen?
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