Counter-fraud

I have been asked to share the top five things I have learnt in my career so far about chasing fraudsters and trying to recover stolen assets.

When I first started doing this type of work, I remember being somewhat impressed by the complicated webs that fraudsters often had set up well in advance of committing the particular fraud in question, which frequently included a web of international bank accounts through which flowed digital transactions that could be difficult to trace.

Bank and building society staff who are trained in spotting scam warning signs stopped £55.5m of fraud last year, according to industry figures.

There were also 197 arrests of criminals and staff made 11,643 phone calls to the police regarding potential fraud incidents.

https://www.yourmoney.com/saving-banking/bank-staff-prevented-55m-worth-of-fraud-last-year/

In her recent letter to the Home Secretary, Emily Thornberry’s criticism of the government’s recently launched Fraud Strategy was unequivocal – though welcome, the long-delayed strategy in her view “does not come anywhere close to what we need”.

https://labourlist.org/2023/07/there-are-practical-ways-for-labour-to-tackle-the-fraud-epidemic/

First new enhancement, the Detect fraud and error identification tool for all payment types, now live

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND / ACCESSWIRE / July 18, 2023 / AccessPay, the leading bank integration provider, is pleased to announce the release of its new fraud and error identification tool, Detect. The launch of Detect marks the first in a series of anti-fraud and error prevention tools that AccessPay will be releasing over the coming months to support the UK's corporates in proactively managing fraud and building operational resilience, as required by the new "UK SOx" corporate governance reforms1.

The government’s national fraud strategy, published on May 3, is the latest in a lengthy series of official documents bemoaning, analysing and attempting to address fraud – an epidemic now accounting for 40 per cent of all crime.

https://www.ftadviser.com/regulation/2023/07/17/govt-s-fraud-strategy-welcomed-but-resources-boost-is-crucial-to-success/

Reforms to the UK’s laws on corporate criminal liability have been talked about for decades.

Failure to prevent offences – where corporates can be held criminally liable if they fail to prevent certain behaviour – have been discussed in earnest since 2010 with the introduction of the corporate "failure to prevent" bribery offence.

The growth of artificial intelligence has caused concern for regulators across the globe as it is taken advantage of by bad actors.

The head of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has said that artificial intelligence could disrupt the financial services sector in “ways and at a scale not seen before”, warning that the regulator would be forced to take action against AI-based fraud.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance has long called for fraud to be a priority of ministers. Waste is bad enough, but precious resources being misdirected through criminal means makes a mockery of the record-high tax burden households are currently paying. And too little is being done about the dramatic rise since the pandemic. A recent hearing of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) took a closer look under the bonnet. The findings weren’t pretty. The government’s annual reports estimate that fraud against the taxpayer rose from £5.5 billion to £21 billion over the two years since the start of the pandemic as compared to the two years leading up to it. Covid led to erratic and expensive action being taken without allowing for the proper safeguards to be put in place. Since then, government looks to be falling behind. A recent report by the National Audit Office (NAO) on progress in combating fraud found that “fraud made up 41 per cent of all recorded crime, but less than 1 per cent of police resources were devoted to tackling it”. Crime has shifted into the digital world, it is time for our government and law enforcement to do the same.

https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/tackling_fraud_not_a_pretty_picture

• It's investing £900 million in an attempt to save £2.4 billion by 2024-5
• He said: 'The area of crime that is increasing – 40 per cent of crime – is fraud'

Criminal gangs who commit benefit fraud were put on notice last night by work and pensions secretary Mel Stride.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/we-ll-use-ai-to-thwart-benefits-fraud-gangs-who-cost-uk-billions-says-mel-stride/ar-AA1djzze

Fraudsters' tactics are becoming increasingly complex, with more complaints about scams being escalated to the Financial Ombudsman Service, new figures have found.

The service, which can be asked by consumers to step in if they cannot reach an agreement with a financial firm, said that in the 2022-23 financial year, it received 21,918 fraud and scam complaints.

https://uk.style.yahoo.com/fraudsters-tactics-becoming-more-complex-074700631.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw&tsrc=twtr