Official calls for ‘national financial fraud registry’

Crimes can be hard to find, even for prosecutors

The federal government should establish a “national financial fraud registry” to make it easier for prosecutors and investors to identify repeat offenders, according to a top law enforcement official.

“It is about public safety and deterrence.

Financial institutions hold a place of trust, they are so interwoven in people’s lives,” said Christy Goldsmith Romero, special inspector general with the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which investigates crime at companies that received taxpayer bailouts during the global financial crisis. But “there is no easy access to information when trying to determine where to investigate.”

The Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program or SIGTARP, launched its own database for financial crimes last week. The searchable database includes details of nearly 400 criminal convictions, guilty pleas and fines secured by SIGTARP over the past decade.

“If you are a would-be fraudster, you don’t want to end up that list. … It becomes a deterrence,” she said.

But that is not enough, said Romero. The details of financial crimes prosecuted by other federal agencies, the Justice Department, or states can still be difficult to find, even for prosecutors, she said. “I worry that we are losing a chance to deter crime; it shouldn’t be dependent on a news outlet picking it up.”

A Justice Department spokesperson did not return a call seeking comment.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, SIGTARP has gained a reputation for aggressively prosecuting bank executives, but agency officials have become frustrated that it was easier to charge senior executives of midsized to small banks for various misdeeds rather than the CEOs of large Wall Street firms.