Olafur Hauksson is an ex-cop. A former police commissioner from a small Icelandic town- isolated from the influence of the elite who had caused the crisis of 2008.
In 2009, he was brought out of retirement… the only person to apply for the daunting position of “special prosecutor”, a newly created position with one job. The job? He was hunting down a different breed of criminal.
He succeeded, doing what nobody else has: he has jailed Icelandic Chief Executives, the Too Big To Jail.
From VOXEurope:
“On one hand, we have to investigate all suspicion of fraud and offences committed before 2009, on the other hand, we bring the lawsuits against the suspects to court ourselves,” Hauksson explains. This is a ‘totally new’ method which allows the investigators to “follow the case” and the judicial system to “know the cases like the back of their hand”. This is indispensable in order “to compete with the well-prepared defence attorneys.”
The new government modified the law to give him the upper hand. Banking secrecy was no more;
“Today, we have access to all information with no objections possible,” claims Olafur Hauksson. Suspected bank fraud, swindles, professional identity theft, misuse of funds, the types of investigations are wide-ranging and the three – soon to be four – interview rooms are never empty. The prosecutor says he is currently working on “a hundred priority cases”.
Many of the cowards, former board members of banks, have fled the scene of the crime, “relocating” to other countries where they can continue their financial “careers” unhindered… fraud is good for your résumé if you’re being hired to commit it…
You can run, but you can’t hide from Hauksson;
“Searches continue and the team pursues its investigations abroad in the foreign subsidiaries of the Icelandic banks and includes questioning foreigners. We enjoy full international cooperation.”
To date, some convictions have been achieved. Two former officials of the Byr bank, the first to be brought to trial, are now serving prison sentences of four and a half years. The former chief of staff to the finance minister at the time of the crisis, Baldur Gudlaugsson, was sentenced to two years in jail for insider trading. More recently, Sigurdur Einarsson, former CEO of the Baupthing Bank was sentenced to reimburse the bank 500 million Icelandic kronur – 3.2 million euros – and had his assets frozen.
Even good guys can be corrupted; his team was over a hundred men strong, but two were found to be colluding with the bankers- they had sold information on a case they were working on for 191,000 Euros to a “mysterious recipient”. The two were promptly suspended.
Sadly, all his hard work might be for naught; some chief executives have been acquitted, and funding for his office is being cut.
From the Financial Times:
There have been acquittals… and some of the sentences fell short of Mr Hauksson’s expectations. Iceland’s centre-right government, formed of the same parties that were in power before the crisis, has cut funding for the special prosecutor’s office, where the staff has fallen to 50 from 110.
Even so, Mr Hauksson is a symbol of true justice; he has proven that top bankers can be prosecuted successfully… that nobody is above the law. If only the rest of the world would listen to him:
“It is not a good thing for the future if you say ‘there has been no criminality [anywhere except Iceland]’. It involves a lack of trust, and the financial system is something you have to rely on through pensions and so on,” – Mr Hauksson.
Sources: VOX Europe
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