Victims of alleged serious fraud are waiting up to a year for specialist detectives to investigate, which some believe is giving perpetrators time to strike again. The head of Victoria's fraud squad, Detective Inspector David Pike, concedes there is a considerable backlog, but this is largely because of the complex and time-consuming nature of offences the squad now investigates.
Inspector Pike acknowledged that a backlog was not ideal. He said they were dealt with on a priority basis and were up against any new cases that came in each week. But he said ''no victims are forgotten''. He said the cases his team worked on were so complex, they took a couple of years to reach a conclusion and stressed that his investigators ''never cut corners''.
''Since I've been here, we've had very few trials and mostly pleas of guilty. Of the cases that have gone to trial, we've won them all.'' He said although it was unfortunate, most people wrongly believed that getting a conviction meant victims would get their money back, but this was not the case, no matter how much they had lost.
