Britain’s financial regulator has banned a former HSBC banker from the industry over a train-fare fraud that cost a railway operator £5,911, or about $7,800.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) barred Joseph Molloy from performing “any function in relation to any regulated activity carried on by an authorized person, exempt person or exempt professional firm,” according to a final notice dated Oct. 1.
Between October 2023 and September 2024, the notice says Molloy set up two accounts with SE Trains Limited, the operator known as Southeastern, using false names, addresses, and email accounts. He used them to acquire travel cards.
He engaged in a practice called “donutting” in which he would pay for two short trips at the ends (his home and his work) and then a hole in the middle. On each trip, he paid for a short journey at the start and another at the end, and evaded the fare for the section in between. He did this on at least 740 journeys.
In January of this year, Molloy pleaded guilty at Inner London Crown Court to fraud by false representation of the Fraud Act 2006. On Feb. 17, he was sentenced to 10 months in prison, which was suspended for 18 months. The court also barred him from the train operator for 12 months, ordered 80 hours of unpaid work and 10 rehabilitation activity days, and ordered him to pay £5,000 in compensation to Southeastern, £150 in costs and a £187 victim surcharge.
At sentencing, the judge called it “a sophisticated and determined fraud,” according to the notice. The judge said that although Molloy was “clearly in a financial position to pay the fares, you decided to evade them and that causes a loss to the whole of society.”
“In my judgement, this is a high culpability,” the judge said. “It is sophisticated, with considerable planning, conducted over a period of almost 12 months.”
The judge also weighed mitigating factors, including that Molloy was experiencing difficult personal circumstances, stopped of his own volition and had shown genuine remorse. The notice says those factors shaped the length of the prison term and the decision to suspend it.
Fare evasion costs London nearly $172 million
The fraud took place while Molloy held his certified functions. The FCA, which can ban anyone who does not appear to be “a fit and proper person” to work in regulated finance, names honesty, integrity, and reputation among its most important considerations and gives “particular consideration” to convictions for dishonesty and fraud.
“Mr Molloy’s conviction demonstrates a clear and serious lack of honesty and integrity such that he is not fit and proper to perform regulated activities,” the FCA notice says.
When asked for comment, the FCA directed Fortune to the notice. HSBC did not respond to Fortune’s requests for comment.
Molloy’s fraud was on Southeastern, a National Rail operator, rather than the Tube, but fare evasion still costs London’s transit system heavily. According to the London Assembly, Transport for London (TfL) estimated that 3.9% of journeys across its network went unpaid in 2023/24, a revenue loss of more than £130 million (or $171.9 million). TfL now puts the rate at 3.5% and aims to cut it to 1.5% or less by 2030/31.
On the Tube alone, the Centre for Government Reform found an evasion rate of 5.03%, the Telegraph reported, in the first three quarters of 2025-26, costing £141 million.
The FCA gave Molloy a decision notice on Aug. 3, and he did not refer the matter to the Upper Tribunal within the 28 days allowed. He also told the regulator that he “accepts that he fell below the standards of behaviour expected by the Authority,” according to the notice.
Generative AI was used for research assistance and/or transcription of this article. The reporter independently reported and verified the factual claims in this article, and a human editor reviewed it before publication.