Speech by Steve Smart, executive director of enforcement and market oversight, at the Law Society Economic Crime Conference 2026. IntroductionA few weeks ago, I visited the Bank of England Museum to see a new exhibition on financial crime. I had expected banknotes and gold bars – not bees.Rather than bullion, I saw a working beehive and learnt how colonies defend themselves by reading signals, sharing information and taking collective action.Every bee gets checked at the door. If something’s off, the colony responds – together, and quickly.That same instinct and partnership are what we need to fight financial crime.The criminals we’re up against don’t present themselves for checking, and the system we’re protecting is much larger than a hive.And with the threat of financial crime getting worse, the stakes are higher than ever.Fraud accounted for nearly half of all crime in England and Wales last year, and estimates suggest that over £100bn is laundered through or within the UK each year.Two sides of the same coin: fraud makes the money. Laundering moves and ‘cleans’ it.Increases in global instability and rapid technological change have made it easier than ever to commit both at scale.At the FCA, we disrupt financial crime every day across thousands of firms. And we are acting against the full spectrum of financial crime – from fraud and online scams to money laundering and insider dealing.But we still don’t have the whole picture, or all the answers.Nobody does.If we’re going to take this on, we have to do it together, and work across the system as partners.
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