Fraudsters becoming more sophisticated, May warns as she launches new taskforce

Updated

Fraudsters are adopting increasingly sophisticated tactics and authorities are "not making up enough ground" in tackling them, Theresa May has warned.

Launching a new taskforce including representatives of banks and police, the Home Secretary said organised criminals are "buying in" expertise in order to mount complex frauds that can "wipe millions off the value of accounts at a keystroke".

Fraud has emerged as one of the main challenges for police in the digital age.

In October official research found there were an estimated 5.1 million incidents of fraud in the previous year, indicating the category is now the most common form of crime.

Mrs May said: "New technology is facilitating new ways to commit cyber crime and to defraud members of the public.

"Even public sector institutions are attractive to fraudsters, who either attempt to hack databases or impersonate institutions to defraud people and businesses.

"Quite simply, we are not making up enough ground on the criminals and people's livelihoods are at risk."

The Home Secretary said fraud is often co-ordinated by organised criminal gangs who increasingly use online channels to dupe unwitting individuals and access their accounts.

There is growing evidence that they do so from jurisdictions that are out of reach of traditional policing and using technology that make them difficult to investigate, she added.

Mrs May was speaking in the City of London at the launch of a new taskforce to tackle fraud.

She declared that "fraud shames our financial system" and said she wanted the taskforce to "signal a new type of partnership".

The initiative "represents a united front of government, law enforcement and industry in preventing, identifying and cracking down on fraud", she said.

The work of the taskforce will include fast-tracking intelligence sharing between banks and law enforcement, and the creation of a new list of the top 10 most wanted suspected fraudsters.

It will also aim to identify intelligence gaps, remove weak links in systems and take steps to produce more efficient identification of victims.



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