A High Court judge has rebuked the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) for "sheer incompetence" after the watchdog admitted it had "no clear record" of the information it used to obtain search warrants against property tycoon Vincent Tchenguiz.
In a hearing on Wednesday, the SFO asked for an extra six weeks to produce a comprehensive statement about how it had built up a case against Tchenguiz (pictured) and his brother Robert to justify the warrants, the FT reports. In March last year, the houses and offices of the brothers were searched in a high-profile dawn raid involving 135 police officers after an investigation of their dealings with the Icelandic bank Kaupthing. The SFO issued a three-page apology to Tchenguiz in February this year in which it admitted that it had “inadvertently relied on misinformation” in order to ...
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