There have been recent press reports, based on data received by Bureau of Investigative Journalism, that the number of civil enquiries undertaken by the Fraud Investigation Service (FIS) into offshore, corporate and wealthy has halved in five years.

This may be a concern, but it is important to understand FIS’s role in HMRC’s compliance’s activities. Originally a creation of the former Inland Revenue, FIS is an elite specialist unit tasked with undertaking civil and criminal enquiries. The civil enquiries were conducted under Code of Practice 9 (COP 9) where serious fraud was suspected and Code of Practice 8 where COP 9 was not considered appropriate.

More than 22,500 people had their social media or email accounts compromised last year, new data reveals.

According to figures from Action Fraud, the UK’s national fraud and cybercrime reporting centre, a staggering 22,530 individuals reported hacking incidents in 2023.

https://www.deeside.com/1-3m-lost-to-email-and-social-media-scams-action-fraud-warns/

Our Business Plan details the work we'll do over the next 12 months to help deliver the commitments in our Strategy.

People across the UK rely on the financial services sector, whether for their bank account, mortgage or pension. The sector employs more than 1.1 million people and, alongside related professional services, contributes an estimated £100bn in tax per year. Our role is to ensure that financial services markets function well. We are the financial conduct regulator of firms and markets in the UK and the prudential supervisor for the vast majority of (non-systemic) firms we regulate.

https://www.fca.org.uk/publications/business-plans/2024-25

Data protection law in the UK is in a state of change, with uncertainty for organisations arising from recent reforms to retained EU law and the prospect of further reforms to follow as the Data Protection and Digital Information (No. 2) Bill proceeds through parliament.

https://www.pinsentmasons.com/en-gb/out-law/analysis/impact-of-retained-eu-law-reforms-on-data-protection

Britain’s biggest Bitcoin scam case has resulted in the successful prosecution of a former takeaway worker, who illegally sat on £2bn worth of the crypto currency.

A lavish multimillion pound house in the heart of Hampstead and jet-setting around the world was the life of Jian Wen, 42, for years.

https://www.cityam.com/biggest-bitcoin-fraud-in-uk-history-as-ex-takeaway-worker-convicted-in-2bn-scam/

Bosses from the UK’s biggest high street banks have told MPs that social media companies could do more to prevent the increasing amount of fraud originating on their platforms.

UK chief executives from Barclays, Lloyds, Natwest and Santander said in a Treasury Committee session that they were doing more work with social media and telecommunications firms to prevent fraud but that there was still progress to be made.

https://www.cityam.com/barclays-santander-natwest-and-lloyds-bosses-warn-of-rising-fraud-threat-from-social-media/

In a proactive move against organised crime and sanctions evasion, the UK government has enhanced its fraud detection capabilities with the integration of UK and US sanctions data into its Single Network Analytics Platform (SNAP)

This upgrade aims to empower authorities in identifying suspicious networks, activities, and users, thus strengthening efforts to combat fraud within the public sector.

https://www.solicitorsjournal.com/sjarticle/criminals-beware-government-upgrades-ai-fraud-detection-tool

The Cabinet Office has announced plans for a number of AI discovery projects over the next 12 months to identify new ways to detect fraud against the public sector.

Minister of State at the Cabinet Office Baroness Neville-Rolfe said the first project will use AI to identify entities registering and bankrupting successive companies to avoid paying debts, known as ‘phoenixing’.

https://www.ukauthority.com/articles/government-plans-projects-to-use-ai-in-detecting-fraud/

The UK government has announced measures granting banks 72 hours to scrutinise suspicious transactions before processing payments to combat rising fraud

This comes after efforts to tackle the escalating threat of Authorised Push Payment (APP) scams which has left victims dealing with a total of £485 million in losses in 2022.

https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/british-government-extends-deadline-for-banks-to-combat-rising-fraud/174688/

Fraud continues to be a significant and growing issue across all sectors in the UK, with stats showing that hundreds of millions are being lost every year; unfortunately, the public sector is far from an outlier to this trend. What can technology do?

https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/using-technology-to-help-local-authorities-to-counter-fraudsters/174708/