UK 'fraud capital of the world': Gangs last year stole more than £1.3 billion
A man was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison at Southwark Crown Court earlier this month after pleading guilty to supplying computer software for fraudulent purposes and money laundering.
Timmy Ijie, 25, of South London, provided criminals with access to computer software to enable them to hack into victims’ bank accounts and commit fraud.
The investigation was carried out by the Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU), a specialist police unit funded by the banking and finance industry.
It emerged that Ijie sold access to the service to other criminals through an encrypted messaging system at a cost of $700 for a monthly subscription, payable in cryptocurrency.
The software reportedly enabled criminals to con victims into handing over their personal banking information, which was then used to bypass bank security systems.
Read more: UK Finance: Over £1bn of fraud prevented in 2019
The court heard that Ijie sold the illicit service to thousands of criminals between April 2021 and February 2022, generating sales in excess of £1 million before the fraud was spotted by the DCPCU’s intelligence unit.
Andrew Hammond, detective constable at the DCPCU, said Ijie had “callously profited” from the sale of computer software, enabling criminals to compromise victims’ bank accounts and commit fraud.
Alistair Dickson of the CPS added that Ijie had used social media to boast about the software’s success.
“He bragged that, in one day alone, it had been used by criminals to defraud over 150 victims and posted positive reviews from criminals who had successfully used the software,” he said.
“Potentially thousands of victims may have had their bank accounts compromised and money stolen from them. Ijie’s guilty pleas and sentence will prevent this software circulating any further and will help keep bank accounts secure from fraudsters.”
The trial was the latest case involving financial and bank-related fraud – one of the most serious and widespread crimes in the country.
A Daily Mail investigation this week found that fraud losses per person were higher in the UK than in any other leading western country, far outstripping the United States, Canada and Australia for these types of crimes.
Naming the UK as the “fraud capital of the world”, the report said Britain also had “by far” the highest level of credit and debit card fraud in Europe and that more than 40 million adults in the country - nearly three in four - had already been targeted by fraudsters this year.
A report due out today by the trade association for the banking and financial services sector, UK Finance, found that criminal gangs last year stole more than £1.3 billion through fraud, often taking advantage of the COVID pandemic by impersonating a range of organisations to carry out their crimes.
Read more: Solicitor jailed for £380k stamp duty fraud
The report revealed that there were more than 2.8 million cases of payment card fraud last year, costing victims more than £524 million, although investment scams were the leading cause of authorised fraud, amounting to more than £171 million.
UK Finance pointed out that the banking and finance industry “prevented a further £1.4 billion of unauthorised fraud from getting into the hands of criminals”.
However, the association urged greater cross-sector action to tackle the problem.
According to reports, only 2% of police officers in England and Wales were assigned to investigating fraud-related crimes last year, despite it being the most common crime in the country.
Moreover, only one in seven frauds were reported to the police or Action Fraud, according to the ONS (Office for National Statistics).
Katy Worobec, managing director of Economic Crime at UK Finance, said fraud not only had a “devastating impact” on victims but it imposed “significant costs on the wider economy”.
She said: “Unauthorised fraud losses fell last year, but this type of criminal activity remains a major problem. Through the introduction of new measures such as strong customer authentication, coupled with continued investment in technology, the banking and finance industry prevents significant amounts of fraud from taking place.
“Authorised fraud losses rose again this year as criminals targeted people through a variety of sophisticated scams, with much of the criminal activity taking place outside the banking sector, often involving online and technology platforms. This is why we continue to call for other sectors to play a greater role in helping protect customers from the scourge of fraud.”
She added that the upcoming Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill “is an important development” and that it would provide an opportunity for the government to give new powers on information sharing and tracking stolen money.
Martin Cheek, managing director at SmartSearch, a leading provider of anti-money laundering (AML) software, welcomed UK Finance’s call for cross-sector action to tackle online scammers.
He said: “Behind these miserable crimes, which often exploit the most vulnerable, are criminals who have been able to able to hide their identities and move stolen money.
“As scammers use ever-more sophisticated ways to steal and launder cash, these findings are yet another indication that robust electronic verification checks are the quickest and most effective way for the organisations these criminals exploit to manage their risks and – most importantly – to protect their customers.”
SmartSearch also revealed that up to 70% of property firms surveyed for an anti-money laundering campaign had not changed their approach to onboarding new customers since sanctions were imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, adding that they continued to rely on hard-copy documents rather than digital checks to identify customers.
In a survey, the company found that almost half (45%) of those surveyed said they were using documents like passports or utility bills to identify new clients – even though 14% of them admitted they were “not confident” in their ability to spot a fake.
