City of London Police response to Police Foundation report on fraud

Deputy Commissioner Nik Adams, National Coordinator for Economic and Cyber Crime for the City of London Police said:

 “Fraud is a national security threat, and the Police Foundation report brings fresh focus on the £6.8 billion cost to the economy and the imperative to empower greater police action.

“As the national lead force for fraud we work with government and the National Crime Agency to set strategy, coordinate the national policing response and work with partners across industry to disrupt and prosecute criminals. We are leading a national economic crime strategy to increase fraud investigators and the use of financial investigation to seize assets, including crypto currency, from criminals using specialist investigation and policing powers.

“Police Foundation have recognised the importance of both our new capabilities and our established relationships with the private sector, which are essential to deliver an industrial scale of crime prevention and tackle fraud effectively. The Think Tank’s first option to reform the way policing responds to fraud by continuing to expand and develop the City of London Police capability as national lead force is therefore welcome.

“Other recommendations include that the role of local policing in fraud should be clarified, which is why we successfully lobbied for fraud to be included in the Strategic Policing Requirement last year, and this year included fraud in the revised PEEL (police effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy) inspection framework.

“His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services has recognised fraud and cyber crime now account for 50 per cent of all crime, and for the first time police forces will need to demonstrate how they are tackling it. We have embedded our officers into the Inspectorate to ensure inspections examine the local response thoroughly, and to ensure forces are clear on the requirements for local policing set within our national strategy. All this builds on work we already do to provide forces with training, support and best practice advice to improve how they investigate fraud, safeguard victims, and prevent crime against individuals and business.

“The response to fraud has been improving. It is not about a badly designed system; it is about sustainably resourcing and strengthening the response to keep pace with this constantly evolving threat. To accelerate further fraud reductions, the wider system, especially the tech sector, need to make online platforms much more hostile to criminals.”

Notes:

• The report from The Police Foundation refers to 70 per cent of fraud originating from overseas. City of London Police work internationally, with recent operational visits to Ghana, Nigeria, and India alongside the National Economic Crime Centre and National Crime Agency. These visits strengthened law enforcement partnerships and have resulted in the fraud minister signing a Memorandum of Understanding with Nigeria just two weeks ago.
• Our investment in specialist crypto currency training and partnerships with the private sector to improve how we track and trace the increasing criminal use of crypto assets are transforming our ability to locate and seize criminal finance.
• Report Fraud is the new service replacing Action Fraud that will launch this year following £150m investment in new technology, processes and people. This will lead to greater collection and sharing of new intelligence and growing threats with the private sector, including live time to enable immediate action against criminal platforms, websites, accounts and telecommunications. It will also provide greater strategic intelligence around emerging threats to drive work across industry to design out crime and provide strategic communications to drive consumer and business-related crime prevention campaigns. This will include a campaign to promote the ease and importance of reporting cyber crime and fraud reporting.
• Over the past two years the City of London Police has led the development of a network of regional Proactive Economic Crime Teams and wider investment of 250 officers and staff across the country. Operation Henhouse is one example of the impact these teams are having.