Iceland Has Hired An Ex-Cop To Hunt Down The Bankers That Wrecked Its Economy

By Rob Wile

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If you were involved in Icelandic high finance in the runup to the recession,  you might want to start watching your back.

That’s because the government has appointed a white collar crime bounty  hunter who wants to haul your behind in (alive, to be sure).

LeMonde  reporter Charlotte Chabas has a profile of Ólafur  Þór Hauksson, a former local police lieutenant whom the Iceland  government appointed to track down individuals likely to have helped sink the  country’s banking sector during the credit crunch.

Hauksson’s job description, according  to PressEurop’s translation of the piece:

“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”.

Hauksson oversees a posse of 100 researchers to help track down  outlaws. He’s netted some major convictions since starting in 2009, including  the former chief of staff of the country’s finance minister on insider trading  charges. Many others await their day in court, Chabas writes.

And he will track you down even if you’ve fled abroad.

“Searches continue and the team pursues its  investigations abroad in the foreign subsidiaries of the Icelandic banks and includes questioning foreigners,” Chabas writes. ” ‘We  enjoy full international cooperation,’ stresses Olafur Hauksson.”

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/iceland-has-hired-an-ex-cop-bounty-hunter-to-go-after-the-bankers-that-wrecked-its-economy-2012-7#ixzz212VFwyCp