Lloyd’s Profiles FBI’s ‘Man in London’

Although it’s fairly well known that the U.S. maintains a number of law enforcement offices and personnel around the world, it’s rare to get a close-up interview with an actual agent.

Lloyd’s has managed to track down and interview the FBI’s “‘man’ in the City of London.” FBI agent Mark Bullock is experienced in financial crime investigations, and, as the FBI’s UK Legal Attaché and head of the London office, he’s got plenty of work to do. In an interview on the Lloyd’s web site (www.lloyds.com) Bullock describes his career and the tasks the London office performs.

He joined the FBI right out of college and has held posts “on the street” in Phoenix and Miami, before becoming a field supervisor in Chicago. He’s also worked in Oklahoma City, managed the economic crimes program at FBI headquarters, and was an assistant special agent in charge of the Phoenix division. He was in charge of the Cleveland Division on Sept. 11.

Returning to FBI HQ he specialized in handling “white collar crime programs as well as the undercover program, and then I became an assistant director of administrative services.” He was assigned to London almost two years ago.

” We have the same priorities as every FBI office,” Bullock told Lloyds – “deal with counter terrorism, counter intelligence, white collar crime, and criminal enterprises.”

He and his team aren’t working alone, however. Bullock stressed the importance of private security services, such as those at Lloyd’s, indicating that it’s very important to have “a person on the inside with internal knowledge of how that business works, knowing what is appropriate and being able to put together a basic package that says ‘here is where we think there has been criminality.’ They then work with the investigator to further that to the point of prosecution.”

As a result Lloyd’s and the FBI have worked together on a number of investigations over the years which have led to successful prosecutions. The process involves identifying issues, “be they matters emanating out of here or more likely coming out of the US, where Lloyd’s insurance policies have been used to collateralize a transaction and we need someone with knowledge of the corporate operations to confirm that it was not a legitimate Lloyd’s instrument,” Bullock explained.

Bullock also outlined the ups and downs of investigations, which can end very quickly, or can be drawn out for years. Sometimes they are dropped completely when the evidence doesn’t appear to support a prosecution. He also noted that “financial crimes are pretty complex matters. As an FBI agent investigating from the outside, you have to have someone inside the private entity that will be the conduit to get you to the people that you need to talk with.”

Asked whether there is ever a conflict over whom – the US or the UK – “gets their man,” Bullock responded that it mostly “goes back to good relationships. If it is a crime that took place in the UK and there is some investigation to be done here, we cannot investigate so we would go the City of London and ask them to cover it. You have to make a choice; should there be prosecution here or should it be in the US. Then you get the Crown Prosecution Service and the US Department of Justice involved and you make that decision as to where you are most likely to be successful. Where is there the abundance of evidence? There can be prosecutions in both countries, although typically that is not done, but it is a possibility.”

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