MPs have criticised the government for “dragging its feet” over the Economic Crime Bill, after a string of measures aiming to toughen up dirty money protections were voted against or watered down.

Peers had passed a series of amendments to the legislation aimed at fighting back against economic crime, fraud and illicit wealth prior to Parliament’s summer recess.

https://www.cityam.com/mps-criticise-government-for-dragging-feet-over-economic-crime-bill/

Mortgage-related fraud has increased by 32.8 per cent over the past year, research from Apex Bridging has revealed.

The research found this rise represented the second-highest increase of all banking and credit industry fraud.

The Department for Business and Trade has been told to get detailed figures for the cost of recovering more than £960m in Covid support packages for small business that is still outstanding after being wrongly paid out in the early months of the pandemic.

https://www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/article/dbt-told-to-detail-cost-of-recovering-covid-loan-fraud-losses

Mining companies must remain vigilant to corruption risks despite recent announcements by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), an expert in managing bribery and corruption risk has said.

https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/corruption-risks-in-mining-remain-despite-uk-probes-dropped

Former Co-op Bank boss Paul Flowers has been accused of defrauding someone of carpets and by using cheques while acting under a power of attorney.

The case against the 73-year-old was detailed in court listings at a hearing at Manchester Magistrates’ Court, where the case was adjourned until next week.

https://www.cityam.com/former-co-op-bank-boss-paul-flowers-accused-of-carpet-fraud/

Action Fraud has criticised what it says is “inaccurate and misleading” coverage of its work that appeared in the Daily Mail’s ‘This is Money’ section.

It claims the article – under the headline ‘I fell victim to a Facebook scam and the police advised me to write a letter of complaint to Mark Zuckerberg’ – makes “a number of inaccurate claims about a report made to Action Fraud following a social media account being hacked”.

https://www.policeprofessional.com/news/action-fraud-disappointed-with-inaccurate-and-misleading-coverage-in-national-media/

Fraudsters are getting more innovative to take advantage of bilateral 5G agreements on international data roaming.

Losses from global roaming fraud are anticipated to exceed $8 billion (£6.34bn) by 2028, driven by the increase in bilateral roaming agreements for data-intensive use cases over 5G networks.

The government is confident that a unit set up twelve months ago to curb fraud in the public sector will be shown to have delivered major savings.

This week marks one year since the government launched the Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) – a new unit focused on helping departments across Whitehall fight fraud and error, as well as improving the public sector's anti-fraud knowledge.

https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/minister-to-step-up-fight-against-public-sector-fraud

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has dropped a 10-year probe into former FTSE 100 miner ENRC, saying it does not have enough evidence to prosecute.

Prosecutors had been looking into the suspected payment of bribes by the company and people linked to it in the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 2009 and 2012.

https://www.centralfifetimes.com/news/national/23745730.serious-fraud-office-drops-10-year-probe-former-ftse-100-miner-enrc/

The Association of British Insurers said the number of fraudulent claims dropped by 19% to 72,600 last year, marking the lowest figure since 2005.

Fraudulent insurance claims tumbled by nearly a fifth to the lowest level since 2005 last year but the value of the average scam surged to a record £15,000 as fraudsters are increasingly “aiming big”, according to a report.

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/uk-news/2023/08/23/insurance-scams-drop-by-nearly-a-fifth-but-value-jumps-as-fraudsters-aim-big/