

Piers Rake
Partner
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Biography
Piers is the head of Astraea’s intelligence & forensic investigations team, and leads multidisciplinary engagements on behalf of clients who are navigating complex special situations.
Piers is a Solicitor, a CEDR Accredited commercial Mediator, a Certified Fraud Examiner, and Forensic Investigator.
With a background in commercial litigation, Piers has 20 years of experience helping clients to manage risk, resolve disputes and investigate and respond to allegations or instances of financial wrongdoing and non-financial misconduct.
In this time, Piers has lived and worked in the Middle East, and has conducted cross border engagements spanning Europe, the Middle East and North & Sub-Saharan Africa. He has particular experience investigating economic crime and advising regulated businesses on their legal and regulatory obligations, having been global head of financial crime Investigations at Barclays Bank Plc.
Piers has led investigations into organised crime networks, high-end money laundering and fraud, in relation to drugs and human trafficking, ‘shadow-banking’ schemes, trade-based money laundering, cash-funnelling, investment and accounting fraud, cross-border corruption, tax evasion and sanction circumvention.
Piers is an investigator and an adjudicator for one of the UK’s main political parties and undertakes investigations relating to complaints against party members. He is also a Governor, trustee and director of Shiplake College, an Independent co-educational boarding and day school in Oxfordshire.