Anti-scam campaign groups urge UK police forces to get tougher on fraudsters
Anti-scam campaign groups are calling for police forces to be much tougher on fraudsters, who they claim are scamming millions from victims in “a penalty-free crime”.
The pleas are being made just days after the UK government announced it is working on an “expanded” fraud strategy as part of a “robust response” to surging reported fraud rates, which rose by 19% last year according to the Office for National Statistics.
The new initiative follows a huge data leak exposing a $35m (£27m) scam call centre operation earlier this month, when the Swedish public broadcaster SVT shared files including more than 1m scam telephone calls with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the Guardian and other international reporting partners.
Jorij Abraham, the managing director of the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA), said: “You can scam and go free. There is hardly any risk. It is easy, low cost and quite rewarding. We are calling on politicians around the globe to give law enforcement more charter – more resources.”
He had earlier told GASA’s London conference on Wednesday that scams are a “penalty-free crime”.
Rocio Concha, director of policy and advocacy at the consumer protection campaigner Which?, added: “Law enforcement has a crucial role to play in stopping the UK’s fraud epidemic and deterring scammers. Police, the government and businesses – such as telecoms firms, banks and online platforms – need to work together to share information about criminals and stop scams appearing in the first place.
“However, we also need to be realistic about what UK law enforcement agencies can do to tackle organised criminal gangs who are often operating complex online scam operations outside the UK. An effective enforcement action by regulators is also needed to hit businesses with financial penalties when they fail to put the right systems in place to prevent scams.”
Launching the government’s new initiative last week, UK fraud minister Lord Hanson told the GASA conference: “We need to hold criminals to account for actions, pursue them relentlessly and make sure we get outcomes … for victims.”
He added that money lost to fraud is “going into other crime enterprises”.
The $35m Georgian scam operation targeted people living in the UK more than any other country, with British residents accounting for a third – about £9m – of the money taken. Of about 2,000 victims globally who were persuaded to part with the largest sums, 652 were based in the UK – with the worst hit victims losing more than £100,000 each.
While the Georgian prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into a Tbilisi-based operation, it is not clear if they are receiving any support from international colleagues.
When asked by the Guardian last week, the UK’s National Crime Agency did not say if it was collaborating with international agencies to investigate the call centre. The City of London police, which is the UK’s lead police force for fraud, declined to answer when asked if it had offered Georgian authorities assistance.
