Category: Fraud

The Department for Work and Pensions has issued its first Eligibility Verification Notice, using powers in the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Act 2025. The measure asks banks to help identify benefit claimants who may hold undeclared savings or stay abroad longer than the rules allow, two significant drivers of fraud and error. The Eligibility Verification Measure is expected to save £1.2 billion by 2030/31 and forms part of a wider plan to save £14.6 billion from fraud, error and debt. It applies only to Universal Credit, Pension Credit and Employment and Support Allowance, and banks check only benefit-receiving…

Report Fraud, the national fraud and cyber crime reporting service run by the City of London Police, has warned the public after recording 110 reports of Amazon impersonation fraud between 5 and 14 October 2026, with combined losses of £86,837, an average of more than £9,600 a day. Victims are typically contacted by phone about a supposed account problem, delivery issue or suspicious purchase, then pressured into handing over payment details or personal documents that can be used for further fraud. People aged 50 to 79 accounted for around 60 per cent of reports. Report Fraud advises people not to…

In this RUSI commentary, Georgia Jones welcomes the UK’s decision to put fraud at the centre of its FATF presidency, noting that no previous presidency has organised its agenda so explicitly around a single underlying crime. She points to estimates that global scams cost around $442 billion in 2025, with profits now comparable to the drugs trade. Jones argues that many of the countries where scam operations are based lack the resources to respond, even though the financial intelligence units, reporting duties and central bank powers that FATF has spent decades promoting could be redirected towards fraud at relatively modest…

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Katowice has charged two Polish nationals over their alleged roles in a cross-border VAT fraud and money laundering scheme built around the trade in electronic devices. Invoices used by the accused in Poland are said to exceed €100 million. Prosecutors estimate the wider scheme cost around €47 million in unpaid VAT in Belgium and €22 million in the Netherlands. The indictment is the first to come out of a broader EPPO investigation into a trading network operating across Austria, Belgium, Germany, Latvia, the Netherlands and Poland. Eight people were arrested in Belgium, the…

Five people have been arrested in Norway and properties searched in Germany and Romania in a Eurojust-coordinated investigation into suspected fraud and bribery against the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA). The investigation centres on a company providing port services to NATO warships, which is suspected of submitting fraudulent invoices over several years. Losses to NATO member countries are estimated at more than €1 million, although the full figure is still being established. The allegations also include bribery through an intermediary. Norway’s economic crime unit, Økokrim, said those arrested in the Bergen area have been charged with aggravated fraud against…

OCCRP reports that Cambodia’s central bank, the National Bank of Cambodia, has shut down around half a dozen banks since last year as international attention has focused on the country’s role as a hub for cyber-scams, with scam proceeds alleged to have flowed into its financial institutions. Despite the closures, the International Monetary Fund’s latest annual review of Cambodia flagged persistent scam activity as a threat to growth and urged the authorities to identify and deal with potential links between banks and criminal groups and to close gaps in licensing. The US Treasury has also sanctioned Cambodian financial institutions over…

Anthropic’s latest threat intelligence report describes operations it disrupted between December 2025 and August 2026 in which people tried to misuse its Claude AI models. The cases span seven areas: cyber operations, influence operations, surveillance, scams and fraud, biological misuse, conventional weapons development and illicit model distillation. The company says the examples are the most notable and novel it has seen, not typical misuse, and that in each case it banned the accounts involved, strengthened its safeguards and shared intelligence with authorities and industry partners where appropriate. The central fraud case concerns a China-based app studio that used Claude to…

Ukraine’s Security Service and National Police have dismantled a Kyiv-based cryptocurrency fraud network that allegedly targeted people in the European Union and turned over as much as $1 million a month at its peak. Investigators say the group involved several dozen people and was led by a 25-year-old IT specialist. Members posed as representatives of crypto platforms and promoted supposedly lucrative investments through Telegram channels. After being shown fake trading results, victims were directed to websites imitating legitimate crypto services. Those sites carried malicious ‘drainer’ code that let the fraudsters empty a victim’s wallet once it was connected and a…

Police in New South Wales have charged three accountants with helping an organised crime syndicate obtain tens of millions of dollars in fraudulent loans, taking the number of people charged in the investigation to 33. The syndicate is alleged to have begun by using stolen identities to finance luxury vehicles that did not exist, so-called ‘ghost cars’, before moving into large-scale personal, business and home-loan fraud against several financial institutions. Police allege the accountants abused their professional positions to approve false applications. A 46-year-old accounting firm director is charged over documents linked to $16.2 million in loans, while two others,…

Two businessmen are standing trial at Southwark Crown Court in London over an alleged investor fraud of about £88 million, or $119 million, linked to a car investment scheme, according to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). The defendants are Reginald Larry-Cole, founder of the Raedex Consortium, and Scott Martin, its former chief executive. Each faces three counts of fraud and both have pleaded not guilty. Raedex operated investment schemes including Buy2Let Cars, PayGo Cars, Wheels4Sure and Rent2Own Cars, which offered investors returns from fleets of leased vehicles. The companies went into administration in 2021, leaving hundreds of investors facing losses.…

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) has made a further arrest in its ‘Escape Room’ investigation into a VAT carousel fraud network operating across six EU member states. The network is alleged to have used hundreds of shell companies and fictitious invoices to disguise trade in electronic devices and evade VAT in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Latvia, the Netherlands and Poland. EPPO estimates losses of at least $79 million in the Netherlands and Belgium. Eight other suspects were arrested in Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland in October 2025. Prosecutors allege the man now arrested acted as a broker between companies in…

LYON, France – A global anti-fraud operation involving 97 countries and territories has led to the arrest of 5,811 individuals and the interception of USD 293 million in illicit assets. Operation First Light 2026 (15 Jan 2026 – 30 April 2026), coordinated by INTERPOL, focused on combatting social engineering scams and associated money laundering activities. Social engineering is a broad term that refers to techniques that exploit a person’s trust to obtain money or confidential information. This type of fraud can include business email compromise, sextortion, as well as romance, impersonation or investment scams. After an initial period of intelligence…

The European Commission today published its 2025 Annual Report on the Protection of the European Union’s Financial Interests (PIF Report), introducing for the first time a comprehensive assessment of the entire anti-fraud cycle and setting out the next steps to strengthen the protection of the EU budget against fraud and corruption. The report marks a significant evolution in how the European Union measures its efforts to safeguard public funds. Rather than focusing primarily on fraud detection, it assesses every stage of the anti-fraud cycle, from prevention and early detection to investigation, prosecution, recovery and reporting. By bringing together information from…

Fraud volumes continue to rise across the globe, and UK institutions are in the crosshairs of increasingly sophisticated criminal networks. UK Finance’s Annual Fraud Report 2026 highlights a troubling reality: while financial institutions continue to prevent significant volumes of fraud, criminals are becoming more skilled at avoiding scrutiny. In 2025 alone, criminals stole £1.28 billion through payment fraud, representing a 4 per cent year-on-year increase and the second consecutive year of growth. These figures reflect not only the scale of the threat but also the adaptability that new technologies afford organised criminal enterprises. The most important insight from this year’s…

Experts have warned that Sri Lanka is emerging as a hub for transnational cybercrime, after a crackdown in south-east Asia pushed Chinese-run criminal networks to relocate their vast scam operations. Sri Lankan police spokesperson Fredrick Wootler said the country was witnessing an “alarming increase of cybercrimes” perpetrated by people entering the country as tourists, and then illegally setting up scam operations targeting people across the world. Authorities in Sri Lanka have carried out more than a dozen raids on alleged scam operations in the country since the beginning of the year, arresting and deporting almost 700 foreigners accused of involvement.…

Increasingly elaborate investment scams involving gold, cryptocurrencies and wine have soared in the past year with more than £220m lost to the fraud, according to a report. UK banks reported almost 15,000 investment scams in 2025 as criminals use artificial intelligence to dupe people out of their money. About £221.5m was lost to scams in which people were persuaded to move their money to a fake investment or a fictitious fund, a rise of 40% from the year before, according to the report from UK Finance. This particular fraud is popular among criminals as it often has high returns, according…

Just days before the kickoff of the 2026 World Cup, cybersecurity experts are raising the alarm over a massive, highly sophisticated surge in digital fraud targeting soccer fans worldwide, offering them fake tickets, nonexistent travel packages, counterfeit merchandise, suspicious betting apps on websites impersonating FIFA. The tournament, which has drawn unprecedented global interest, has become the “perfect bait” for opportunistic hackers and criminal syndicates, according to David Gonzalez Cuautle, the awareness and research manager at the cybersecurity firm ESET. “Cybercriminals tend to operate in seasons and with specific themes,” Gonzalez Cuautle said in an interview with OCCRP, adding that the…

The SFO is investigating allegations of fraud by three UK companies in relation to Energy Company Obligation 4 (ECO4), a UK government energy efficiency scheme designed to tackle fuel poverty and help reduce carbon emissions. At the heart of the investigation are allegations that Warmfront Team Ltd, JJ Crump and South Coast Insulation Services were involved in a sophisticated conspiracy across the country to undermine a government scheme by submitting claims where little or no work was undertaken. It is suspected that energy companies were defrauded of at least £44 million in this way. Working with the National Crime Agency,…

The Taipei District Prosecutors Office announced Wednesday that it has indicted 62 individuals and 13 companies and seized more than $170 million in assets linked to Prince Group, heightening global action against the Cambodia-based conglomerate accused of running extensive online fraud operations. Included among the three principal defendants in the Taiwanese charges is Chen Zhi, the chairman of Prince Group who was extradited from Cambodia to Beijing earlier this year Chen Zhi’s legal representatives did not respond to a request for comment before publication. The Prince Group has said allegations made by U.S. and U.K. authorities are “baseless and appear…

In a sign that prosecutors in Germany’s Bamberg region are ramping up efforts to fight cybercrime, a court has begun hearing its second case involving a person accused of providing software allegedly designed to facilitate fake investment scams. While legal action has most often targeted people running cyberfraud operations, Bavaria’s Bamberg Regional Court this month began another trial of someone who ran a company that allegedly enabled scammers. Opening arguments began on March 2 in the trial of a man identified only as “Shay B.” To protect privacy, full names are typically not disclosed to media in German trials. He…

The Isle of Man has brought in new sanctions as part of an international crackdown on a criminal network linked to large-scale online fraud and human trafficking, the government has said.The Treasury said measures were in line with the UK and formed part of a wider operation involving the US and other international agencies.It said the sanctions aimed to target individuals and organisations linked to purpose-built “scam compounds” in south east Asia, where trafficked people were forced to carry out online fraud.Home Affairs Minister Jane Poole-Wilson said: “Working with our international partners is essential in tackling serious criminal groups.”She said:…

Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) on Wednesday arrested six people and searched seven sites in an operation conducted as it announced a bribery and fraud investigation into the former management of Home REIT, a UK-listed social housing company. The suspected wrongdoing is valued at about 300 million pounds (nearly $404 million). Investigators, supported by the National Crime Agency, carried out searches at homes in Altrincham, Maidenhead and London, and a commercial site in Manchester. Italy’s Guardia di Finanza also searched a property in Venice as part of the inquiry. Home REIT, which listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2020,…

Cambodia is a global epicenter for scam centers, home to one of the biggest synthetic drug labs ever detected, and its citizens have been involved in an array of Southeast Asia’s most infamous — and lucrative — transnational crimes. Meanwhile, “corruption and official complicity” enables “endemic” human trafficking involving tens of thousands of victims, according to the U.S. State Department. Cambodia’s government, which did not respond to questions from OCCRP, has launched a crackdown on scam factories and says it has made thousands of arrests. It also signed agreements to strengthen anti-money laundering measures last year. Even so, international observers…

You get a call from your bank and the informed voice asks to you to confirm the personal details they have on file, which you do. You are then asked whether you bought something at an electrical retailer recently for £120 and spent £235 in Birmingham, but neither transaction rings true. The caller tells you they have blocked the payments but they must now secure your account, and say they will send you a notification to approve, or a code to pass on to them. You feel under pressure to protect your money, so you do what is asked. Unfortunately,…

Authorities in Europe and Israel have targeted companies and suspects behind fraudulent social media advertising campaigns as part of a crackdown on a massive cryptocurrency fraud and money laundering operation, which allegedly scammed thousands of victims with fake online investment schemes. Coordinated actions by law enforcement in Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, and Israel in November led to two arrests and other suspects questioned, Europol said Thursday. The European Union law enforcement agency said it was the second phase of an operation that led to nine arrests in October across Cyprus, Germany, and Spain connected with the laundering of illicit funds generated…

Ukraine’s government has moved to sanction businessman Timur Mindich, a close associate and business partner of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, amid a widening corruption probe that has already ensnared several senior officials. The decision was announced Wednesday, a day after Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) said it had dismantled a high-level criminal organization accused of siphoning large sums from the country’s state-owned nuclear energy operator, Energoatom, through an elaborate kickback and money-laundering scheme. NABU said the 15-month investigation, codenamed Midas, uncovered a group of so-called “shadow managers” who allegedly infiltrated Energoatom to systematically extort kickbacks from contractors and laundered an estimated…