Category: Fraud

Lorraine McLaren and her husband Edwin were seen as “saviours” to the cash-strapped homeowners who turned to them in desperation when financial difficulties struck. But really Edwin used his financial know-how to dupe unsuspecting victims into signing over their houses, which were then sold from under them. And Lorraine benefited from her husband’s fraudulent scheme to live it up in a £762,000 home in Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire, with lavish holidays in Dubai and private schools for her kids. Shameless Lorraine even splashed out on a ring worth £100,000 while her victims were left homeless. The duplicitous pair were only…

Fake it till you make it? Financial fraudsters are setting up fake websites and posing as financial consultants from call centers. Late last month, Bulgarian police took down a financial crime ring that was responsible for stealing at least €10 million. Experts say that this could be happening here, too, targeting financial customers. According to CSC’s Domain Security Report, “Internet fraud is typically targeted, using a variety of threat vector forms, and is a systemic issue,” said Ihab Shraim, chief technology officer, Digital Brand Services at CSC. “These threat vectors start with a fraudulent domain containing a look-alike brand name,…

A new report by the UK’s Treasury Select Committee has called on the government to work harder to tackle the ‘growing fraud epidemic’ in the UK. The report – which focuses on Economic Crime – urges the government to legislate against online fraudulent adverts and to consider whether online giants should reimburse those who fall victim to scams on their platforms. The Committee also called on the government to make reimbursement for victims of authorised push payment fraud mandatory. Amongst a number of recommendations, the report called on law enforcement to be resourced appropriately to tackle the scale of the…

Thousands of counterfeit Super Bowl-related merchandise seized from vendors from all over Southern California is worth an estimated $97.8 million, federal authorities said Thursday. Operation Team Player – an effort involving several federal agencies, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and the NFL – has been cracking down all year on the illegal importation of counterfeit sports apparel and merchandise. The joint task force has been scouring online marketplaces, local flea markets such as the Santa Fe Springs Swap Meet, and Santee Alley in Downtown L.A.’s Fashion District, looking for fake jerseys, hats, rings, T-shirts, jackets, tickets, souvenirs, and other…

HMRC says nearly 9% of furlough scheme was fraudulently claimed or otherwise wrongly paid out last year More than £5.5bn of taxpayer money from the government’s coronavirus assistance schemes including furlough, self-employed support and “eat out to help out” was paid out to fraudsters or given out incorrectly. It emerged on Thursday that £5.2bn paid out by the government under the coronavirus job retention scheme, widely known as furlough, ended up in the hands of fraudsters or was paid in error. HM Revenue and Customs acknowledged in its annual report that about 8.7% of the £60bn it paid out under…

With “Partygate” still dominating the headlines it was always going to be a tough start of the working week for Boris Johnson. The prime minister’s Monday, however, got even worse when his counter-fraud minister quit over the government’s decision to write off £4.3bn in fraudulent Covid loans. At the dispatch box in the House of Lords yesterday, Theodore Agnew “staged a dramatic public resignation”, The Guardian said. Lord Agnew, who was a Treasury and Cabinet Office minister, said his decision was not an attack on the PM, but the row will leave Johnson “fighting Conservative anger on yet another front”,…

A judge has demanded an investigation after two members of an organised crime gang were able to successfully apply for £145,000 in Covid ‘bounce back’ loans. Asif Hussain, the ringleader of an international ‘chop shop’ ring, which exported stolen Range Rovers and other expensive cars to Dubai, was able to secure £50,000 in funding offered by the Government to help businesses struggling during the pandemic. Another gang member, Ibraaz Shafique, was able to receive two huge loans, firstly for £50,000 then for £45,000. The maximum loan available was £50,000. Both men had previous criminal convictions. A judge said ‘the most…

A new survey has highlighted the importance of technology in the efforts of financial institutions to combat financially-motivated criminals. The study, published by Guidehouse & American Banker/Arizent has recommended that tech solutions need to be aligned with broader fraud mitigation programmes in order for organisations to start making ground on bad actors. Ongoing vulnerability & risk assessments, adequate investments and coordination with third parties have also been identified as essential to maximize the benefits of available solutions. Despite a market saturated with advanced technology tools, the truth is that many financial institutions are struggling to effectively deploy and integrate anti-fraud…

There is no better representation of the decline of the English upper class into the global rich’s servant class than Ben Elliot. On the one hand, the co-chairman of the Tory party is now a rent collector, hauling in money for the Johnson administration from the Russian rich and native hedge fund bosses. On the other, he is an actual servant: an upmarket flunkey, to be sure, praised by society magazines for his “puppyish schoolboy charm”, but a flunkey nonetheless. Elliot is a founder of the Quintessentially “concierge” service that gives the super-rich anything they want: luncheon on an iceberg;…

As part of our latest job scams campaign, the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) has been working with JobsAware and Cifas, to understand the impact of scams, and how information collected as part of a scam, is then used by scammers. Signs of a potential job scam Job scams are on the rise, and in 2020, seasonal job scams increased by 88% compared to 2019. With figures predicted to increase again this year, it’s important to remain vigilant and familiarise yourself with the signs of a potential job scam or fraudulent job advert. The first two phases of this campaign…

The Home Secretary Priti Patel announced the relaunch of the Joint Fraud Taskforce on 21 October 2021. In light of the 24% rise in fraud during coronavirus (COVID-19), the Home Secretary Priti Patel announced the relaunch of the Joint Fraud Taskforce on 21 October 2021, which will play a vital role in countering fraud through public-private sector partnerships. A crime that leaves devastating financial and emotional effects on victims will now be tackled jointly in a first-of-its-kind agreement between private sector companies and the government to protect people’s hard earned cash. To coincide with the first meeting of the relaunched…

The phrase ‘social engineering’ may sound like something out of a behavioural psychology textbook, yet it represents a real and present threat facing citizens and financial institutions around the world. In fact, social engineering is a leading cause of financial crime today, wherein criminals dupe their victims through the use of psychological manipulation in order to commit financial fraud, such as disclosing confidential information and eliciting payments. And it’s on the rise. Fourthline recently gathered data pertaining to millions of bank account openings throughout Europe in the past year and found a 37% increase in social engineering attempts by fraudsters…

Financial crime, fraud and hacking soared during the pandemic as criminals took advantage of behavioural changes during three strict lockdowns. In fact, fraud and cybercrime jumped by nearly a third in the last twelve months. Time for City A.M. to catch up with financial crime guru Richard Wood, a former Morgan Stanley fraud manager who became CEO of economic crime solution provider Synectics Solutions in January of last year. For the last 30 years, the company has been working to prevent financial crime, fraud and money laundering and helps clients such as the Cabinet Office, a range of City banks…

The Crown court heard almost double the number of fraud cases in the first half of 2021 than in the same period last year – but a drop in the value of alleged frauds suggests that complex hearings are still being delayed. Research by Big Four firm KPMG found that 151 criminal fraud cases – each worth over £100,000 – were heard in the first six months of 2021, as courts began to recover from the pandemic. Just 180 cases were heard in the whole of 2020. Cases relating to rogue tradesmen more than doubled in volume in the first…

UK national fraud and cybercrime reporting centre Action Fraud is being scrapped, the government said in its Beating Crime Plan. This comes after an undercover investigation by The Times in 2019 revealed that the centre’s telephone handlers were being trained to mislead victims into thinking their cases would be investigated, while they were almost never looked at. According to the newspaper, as few as one-in-50 reports actually led to a fraudster being caught and that only one-in-200 police officers were assigned to fraud investigations. This prompted the Home Office to commission a review of fraud policing in the UK, led…

The UK’s House of Commons Public Accounts Committee has estimated that fraud and error related to Covid-19 support schemes could cost UK taxpayers billions of pounds. In a new report focusing on fraud and error relating to government support schemes, the committee said undetected fraud and error resulted in losses to the public purse of around £25 billion a year. This amount could be doubled through fraud relating to Covid support, with evidence from the Cabinet Office suggesting that fraudulent claims for Universal Credit, furlough and the Bounce Back Loan Scheme could add up to losses of more than £30bn.…

In 2020, one in three people in Southeast Asia experienced online fraud amid a boom in online shopping and activity due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Asia-Pacific already has the highest number of internet users in the world, so the opportunities for scammers were already aplenty before the crisis of 2020. The pandemic-influenced increase in online activities has served as the perfect backdrop for increasingly nuanced racketeering efforts by financial crime syndicates who targeted everything from the boom in deliveries, to interest in the stock market and even the vaccine program to fleece consumers. In Indonesia, online fraud made up the…

The Serious Fraud Office has today published its Business Plan for 2021/22. The Business Plan details how the SFO will deliver on its mission to fight complex economic crime, deliver justice for victims and protect the UK’s reputation as a safe place to do business. To realise this ambition, the 2021/22 Business Plan describes the action we will take in four priority areas of operations, people, stakeholders, and technology. Together, these actions will contribute towards the SFO’s strategic objectives: To investigate and prosecute the most serious or complex cases of fraud, bribery and corruption. To uphold the rule of law,…