carry out this crime hidden behind your computer.


Some people’s view is that keeping money in a bank now may not be the best place as the value of the pound is decreasing. So, investing elsewhere may be an option, maybe crypto assets and gold. This is a big opportunity for investment scams. Also, mortgage fraud. It is of concern and we are monitoring it closely.


Are there changes in the threat relating to the Ukraine / Russia conflict?


With the Ukraine / Russia conflict, we see the mobilisation of tanks and troops, we don’t see as visibly the cyber warfare Russia is using to attack Ukraine, plus the groups seeing this as an opportunity to attack Russian infrastructure. Cyber is no longer just a vehicle for crime, it is also used for cyber warfare – as a way of attacking critical national infrastructure to destabilise an economy. Russia has thousands of people involved. It is a capability many countries are building.


What are the links between fraud and organised crime?


Most fraud and cyber crime is driven by organised crime networks emanating from different countries – some specific crime type threats are associated with certain countries.


The income generated as a result of fraud can be invested in other types of crime, such as importing firearms and human trafficking. There is poly criminality where gangs are involved in a plethora of different criminal activities. The City of London Police is looking to show connections for serious organised crime and encourage an understanding within policing to accept this and do more to tackle fraud.


What are the key challenges today to investigating fraud?


About 70% of all fraud offences are committed by crime networks and individuals based overseas, making investigating fraud difficult, complex, protracted, expensive, and it may not bear fruit, especially when crimes emanate from countries where we don’t have diplomatic relationships. I’m not saying that we won’t investigate and the public rightly expect us to do so, and where we can, we want to deliver visible justice, and put someone behind bars. But this international dimension and complexity mean this may not be possible. Additionally, investigating this type of crime may not prevent further victims. So, we are now focusing our efforts more on prevention and disruption.


As an example, we saw fraud happening more and more around computer service software and service contact centres purporting to be from Microsoft. They were contacting Windows users saying their operating system was in need of a free upgrade. The victim gave permission for the call handler to remote


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access their device and the criminals employed a banking trojan enabling them to steal banking details and ID. If we can identify where the contact centre is, we contact the local authorities and work with them to tackle this crime.


Additionally, we had a Microsoft specialist working with us looking at the nature of the crime and taking learning back to Microsoft to implement prevention measures. There was subsequently a big campaign on how Microsoft will never contact you and take over your device. They made changes to their customer service methodology and how they contact users.


How do the police handle fraud reports?


Any fraud against a person or business comes into the Action Fraud website or contact centre. This is submitted to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) as a prime report and data washed against other feeds coming in, for example from retail banking. If there are other similar crimes, for example four victims of an investment scam from the same organised crime network, the NFIB will link them together to create a case. Then the NFIB will determine which agency or police force should own primacy and will send out the case for investigation.


Each of 43 forces has a fraud team that can investigate these crimes. As well as these local force teams, there are also regional teams with small fraud investigation teams. There are nine Regions across policing now. These were formed in recognition of the fact that terrorists and organised crime groups do not commit crime within one police force area. The City of London Police provides leadership to the regional fraud teams, with more resources being added to them all the time.


The City of London Police has fraud investigations teams for frauds committed in the City of London and also 25% of its cases are from other forces where they do not have the capacity or specialist capability. Additionally, the City of London Police has specialist units funded from outside the force. This includes an Insurance Unit, funded by the Association of British Insurers; an Intellectual Property (IP) Unit, funded by central government; and Dedicated Card and Payment Unit (DCPCU); funded by the banking industry.


For the most vulnerable victims and distressing cases, we have the Economic Crime Victim Care Unit – this gives victims of fraud prevention advice, and, in some cases, this includes detailed telephone support.


We want to strongly encourage people to report fraud. Due to the volume of crimes reported, we know the likelihood of investigation is small – but it helps us understand that crime, and helps with prevention messages and how we can stop it. If a business reports a fraud there might be ten others experiencing the same thing; that


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linked series case with have multiple victims and will be more likely to be investigated.


The NFIB must have considerable intelligence and expertise about fraud. How does it use this to tackle and prevent crime?


Our National Coordination Office organises action throughout the country. For example, if romance fraud is a big problem, we will identify the top 20 people carrying out this crime across the country and will work with the police forces involved to tackle this.


In addition, the NFIB uses all the intelligence it gathers to identify cyber enablers, like email addresses, telephone numbers and websites and will work with partners to take them down to stop further crimes.


We look at crime trends and produce a myriad of prevention and awareness raising products.


The NFIB also hosts the National Fraud and Cyber Crime Training Academy – providing training for businesses and law enforcement on many areas, including fraud investigation and crypto currencies.


How is the response to fraud developing?


Our efforts have to be focused on early prevention. At the moment, our response to fraud is very reactive. But we are building a proactive response to identify and map these criminal networks and disrupt them before they create any victims.


We are improving the service provided by Action Fraud and by 2024, we will give business a better victim journey. I acknowledge that at the moment, even if you report to Action Fraud, most crimes are not getting investigated – although the probability is getting higher, it is still a small percentage. We are building a proactive system with the regional teams. This will include continually increasing the capacity of our teams and replacing the technology behind the NFIB. It will be much more effective in preventing and disrupting crimes that could harm people and their businesses and should reduce victimisation.


Are you taking a similar approach to cyber crime and moving your focus to disruption and prevention?


Enforcement of cyber crime can difficult – we are chasing ghosts who use encryption and proxy services to find the person behind the crime. We do some great work and are making arrests all the time but, yes, it is becoming more about prevention. We are working with tech companies as much as possible, supporting them to make new products – hardware, software firmware – as secure as possible. It is also about understanding the threat and helping business become more secure.


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