Fraud agency thanks IT system for high conviction rate

NEWS The UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) claims its success rate of 37 convictions out of 39 prosecutions is mainly due to its use of IBM-based technology. Rosalind Wright, director at the SFO, said it has won some significant court cases in spite of a shrinking budget and a number of staff losses. According to Wright, this was only possible through the use of a document management system contracted from IBM in January for £15m. An SFO spokesman said: "With some cases, the sheer volume of documents can run into millions. In many instances investigators are following a long paper trail. To have all this on an IT system can really speed up the investigation. We can also set up monitors in the court and displayed digitised documents, rather than have to wait for people to leaf through the actual document."