The think-tank the Police Foundation has published research on serious fraud offending against the public and businesses in the UK. It is based on 25 cases investigated by UK police (mainly from caseloads of specialist economic or cybercrime teams in five local police force areas; and four from the caseload of a national investigation unit). The report explores the criminal methods to perpetrate serious fraud and the characteristics of the offenders and their networks.
In an accompanying blog, Skidmore stated that evidence on offenders remains very thin, ‘in part because they are a cohort of offenders who often remain hidden (to victims and the police alike) and so are less accessible to research. Much of the existing work has focused on understanding fraud perpetrated from within organisations, commonly termed ‘white collar fraud’. This ignores the significant growth and changes to fraud, largely due to an exponential growth in online communications, commerce and finance, and an accordant growth in criminal opportunities.’
Pursuing offenders
As for implications for public policy, in terms of pursuing offenders, seriousness and complexity can sit behind ostensibly low harm fraud offences (such as an online shopping fraud), which highlights the limits to criminal investigation responding to a reported crime instead of pursuing the perpetrators. Not all those involved in serious fraud offending are serious offenders, especially those on the peripheries of the conspiracy and who are more expendable to the network. Effective intervention may need to be sensitive to the potential vulnerabilities of co-offenders so as to divert them from further offending. These offenders may also be a vital source of intelligence.
Fraud is an offence category that encompasses a wide range of methods and a broad spectrum of harm. The think-tank’s study draws attention to the limited conceptualisation and the challenge for delineating a subset of fraud offending that is ‘serious’, one that has significance for how law enforcement agencies rationalise their strategic and operational choices. This is especially relevant for fraud, a crime that has strained for prominence on the police agenda (as according to the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary report of 2019). The research shows ‘serious fraud’ is an increasingly diverse construct within law enforcement, incorporating a diverse cohort of offenders and offending.
It includes highly specialised fraudsters operating in particular occupational settings (such as, financial services), and to a large extent, generalist offenders responding to the growth of opportunities to commit fraud online. Serious fraud is a diverse problem that requires diverse interventions, the report suggests. While digital crime can be borderless, the report pointed to how the requirement to appear credible to deceive victims and the various guardians in the private and public sector, and the pragmatic steps needed to gain access to the illicit proceeds, means that many opportunities to perpetrate fraud are domestic.
To download the report, by Michael Skidmore, visit the Police Foundation website.
The publication coincides with the Home Office’s long-awaited fraud strategy which appointed an Anti-Fraud Champion, Anthony Browne, the Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire; and proposed to reduce fraud by 10 per cent on 2019 levels by 2025.
