New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced the appointment of Gary Fishman, a veteran financial crimes prosecutor, to serve as chief of the newly formed Criminal Enforcement and Financial Crimes Bureau, which will focus on prosecuting complex and large-scale financial crimes, including mortgage fraud.
The Criminal Enforcement and Financial Crimes Bureau, headed by Fishman, expands the Attorney General’s former Criminal Prosecutions Bureau. The reorganization will focus on criminal enforcement, including combating complex financial crimes in bank and financial institution fraud; securities and investment fraud; money laundering; tax crimes; mortgage fraud; investment schemes, and insurance fraud. The newly established bureau will also be forming a Financial Intelligence Section to initiate investigations into illicit financial activities and track the flow of suspicious funds by reviewing banking, regulatory, law enforcement, and open-source data to identify trends that will enhance the investigation and prosecution of financial crime schemes.
“Under Gary’s leadership, our newly created Criminal Enforcement and Financial Crimes Bureau will ferret out the bad actors in our critically important financial sector in order to protect our economy and investors,” Schneiderman said. “Financial industry leaders who play by the rules deserve a level playing field, and those bad actors who seek to take advantage of their competitors and their neighbors must be stopped and punished.”
“Attorney General Schneiderman has demonstrated his commitment to ensuring that everyone, no matter how wealthy or powerful, plays by the same rules,” Fishman said. “I am grateful for the opportunity to join this effort, and I will continue to prosecute those who threaten the lives and livelihoods of everyday New Yorkers.”
Fishman has nearly 20 years of prosecutorial experience, including conducting large-scale, white-collar investigations and prosecutions. Fishman joined the Office of the Attorney General in 2012, serving as senior investigative Counsel to the Division of Criminal Justice. During his tenure, Fishman has led a number of prominent matters on behalf of the Attorney General, including the current investigation into the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty. Before joining the Office of the Attorney General, Fishman was the managing director of Investigative Group International, where, among other responsibilities, he conducted and supervised complex and highly sensitive worldwide investigations on behalf of institutional clients, including law firms, corporations, investment banks, hedge funds, and public agencies.
Prior to that, Fishman was a prosecutor with the New York County District Attorney’s Office for more than 15 years, most recently as the principal deputy chief of the Major Economic Crimes Bureau in the Investigation Division.