{"id":121138,"date":"2025-05-22T00:15:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T00:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/121138\/"},"modified":"2025-05-22T00:15:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T00:15:09","slug":"britains-cops-are-not-equipped-to-fight-fraud-damning-new-report-reveals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/121138\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain\u2019s cops are not equipped to fight fraud, damning new report reveals"},"content":{"rendered":"

BRITAIN’S police are not equipped to fight fraud, which now accounts for more than four in ten crimes committed, a new report said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Half of police<\/a> officers don\u2019t believe they have the skills to investigate scams and almost 90% said they don\u2019t have enough resources to properly track crooks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Person<\/a><\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

Despite there being more than 4 million victims of fraud, just 3,641 cases resulted in a chargeCredit: Getty\"Hooded<\/a><\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s police aren\u2019t equipped to fight fraud, now behind four in ten crimes, a report saysCredit: Getty<\/p>\n

A report by think tank, the Police Foundation, said that the Government should create a national Crime<\/a> Prevention Agency to tackle fraud and cybercrime, and private companies should be legally required to share data relevant to investigating and halting crimes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It also said that fraud policing should come under any new national police agency ranked alongside organised crime<\/a> and counter-terrorism<\/a>, and there should be a national strategy to ensure a pipeline of fraud-savvy investigators.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With 70% of the crime originating abroad, report author Michael Skidmore said: \u201cWe have a 1960s local policing structure trying to fight a 21st-century cyber-enabled, cross-border crime<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Official figures show that there were 4.1 million victims of fraud, which accounted for 43% of all crime last year in England<\/a> and Wales<\/a> and the cost to society is \u00a36.8 billion a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But despite this, the latest Home Office<\/a> figures show just 3,641 fraud cases resulted in a charge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Launching the report supported by Virgin Media O2<\/a>, Andy Higgins, acting CEO of the Police Foundation, said: \u201cFraud is now the background noise of modern life with one in 10 of the adult population becoming a victim, but the vast majority of victims getting no police response. <\/p>\n

“We need a single national body to oversee fraud investigations.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Michael Skidmore added: \u201cWe need a new national lead body with a ring-fenced budget and local and regional tasking powers, greater private sector collaboration and an uplift in skills.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe current model is simply unsustainable, given the scale, harm and sophistication of the fraud challenge we face today.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Murray Mackenzie, Director of Fraud Prevention<\/a> at Virgin Media O2, said: \u201cAt Virgin Media O2, we\u2019re committed to fighting fraud, having invested millions in our defences and blocked more than \u00a3250 million transactions in a single year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut with overall fraud prosecutions falling despite a 33% jump in cases last year, the UK is failing to effectively tackle fraud, and criminals are stealing with no real prospect of ever facing justice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More than one in four scammed adults felt embarrassed<\/p>\n

\u201cVictims are being left to fend for themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe urge the government to seize this opportunity to reform and show that it won\u2019t allow fraud to become a crime without consequence.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Labour MP, Luke Charters, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Financial Technology<\/a> and member of the Public Accounts Committee, said that co-operation between big tech companies was vital to tackle crime and more needed to be done.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cSocial media companies are in the last chance saloon, some are really lagging behind. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf they don\u2019t share data it should be made mandatory.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want a Labour Government to have a legacy of fraud increasing from our time in office.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BRITAIN’S police are not equipped to fight fraud, which now accounts for more than four in ten crimes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,188,21642,393,4884,135,1144,529,3446,712,820,118,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-121138","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-cyber-crime-and-hacking","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-metropolitan-police","16":"tag-northern-ireland","17":"tag-police","18":"tag-scams-and-fraud","19":"tag-scotland","20":"tag-section-newsuk-news","21":"tag-the-sun-newspaper","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114548606678009144","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}