Emily Shepperd, chief operating officer of the Financial Conduct Authority, recently unveiled the key themes of the regulator’s five-year strategy for 2025–30 in her speech to the TheCityUK National Conference in Birmingham.

The strategy focuses on creating a fairer and more resilient financial system. As expected, a key focus area involves tackling financial crime, particularly fraudulent activity and money laundering. However, this ambitious plan prompts questions about whether it marks a significant shift or is merely a continuation of previous efforts.

https://www.ftadviser.com/financial-conduct-authority-uk/2025/1/15/is-the-fcas-latest-fraud-strategy-just-recycled-promises/

Charity Commission worked closely with West Midlands Police to support investigation into individuals connected to Sikh Youth UK.

The Charity Commission yesterday welcomed the sentencing of Rajbinder Kaur and Khaldip Singh Lehal.

Rajbinder Kaur has been jailed for 2 years and 8 months after being convicted of money laundering and six counts of theft, amounting to £50,000. This followed her theft of money that had been donated to Sikh Youth UK.

Kaur was also found guilty of knowingly or recklessly providing false or misleading information to the Charity Commission, in an attempt to cover up the theft – as was her brother, Khaldip Singh Lehal.

Singh has been given a four-month sentence, suspended for 18 months, with 80 hours of unpaid work.

It is a significant step for individuals to be convicted for providing the Charity Commission with false or misleading information, under section 60 of the Charities Act 2011, and the sentences underline how seriously the courts take this crime.

The Charity Commission launched a statutory inquiry into funds held by, and raised in connection with, Sikh Youth UK in October 2018, after West Midlands Police passed on concerns relating to charitable funds raised in the name of the organisation.

The Commission provided crucial evidence to support the police in their investigation and provided written and oral evidence to the court which helped secure the convictions.

https://www.wired-gov.net/wg/news.nsf/articles/regulator+welcomes+sentencing+of+brother+and+sister+after+charity+fraud+10012025122000

Those using the platform Booking.com to book their holidays or accommodation are being warned they could be targeted with emails or messages requesting payments from hotels who have had their account taken over by fraudsters. Between June 2023 and September 2024, Action Fraud received 532 reports from individuals, with a total of £370,000 lost.

Insight from Action Fraud reports suggests the individuals were defrauded after receiving unexpected messages and emails from a Booking.com account belonging to a hotel they had a reservation with, which had been taken over by a criminal. Using this account, the criminals send in-app messages, emails, and WhatsApp messages to customers, deceiving them into making payment and/or requesting credit card details.

The specific account takeovers are likely to be the result of a targeted phishing attack against the hotel or accommodation provider, and not Booking.com’s backend system or infrastructure.

Public Sector Fraud Authority chief also discusses getting the right work-life balance and the rising fraud threat.

What was your highlight of 2024?

Bringing the government counter fraud profession’s Counter Fraud Leadership Programme to life. Ever since I started leading fraud teams 15 years ago, I’ve felt the need for an offer for those leading the fraud response to help them do their jobs – based on the learnings of those who have gone before! It’s taken a few years, with the pandemic in between, to bring this from an idea into a living, breathing year-long qualification with an immersive week at the end. To see it come to life, for it to exist and for participants to be so positive, has been inspirational. An example of something being better than you imagined and being so proud of everyone who worked to bring it to life.

https://www.civilserviceworld.com//in-depth/article/mark-cheeseman-on-achieving-a-15yearlong-aspiration-and-getting-the-right-worklife-balance

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has brought criminal charges against the partner of a wealth management firm, claiming he transferred £64m from client accounts, using the money to buy racehorses, residential and commercial property and to fund a nightclub business.

The FCA is charging John Dance, principal partner at WealthTek LLP — formerly known as Versus Asset Management — with nine criminal offences, including multiple counts of fraud and money laundering.

https://corporate-adviser.com/fca-charges-wealth-manager-who-bought-racehorses-and-property-with-client-funds/

Fraudsters have stolen more than £100m from the NHS in the past five years, exploiting weaknesses in IT systems to commit crimes ranging from stealing credit card data to hacking supplier emails, The Independent can reveal.

Scams have cost the NHS the equivalent of funding more than 2,000 senior nurses’ salaries for a year or providing over 20,000 rounds of radiotherapy for cancer patients.

Experts warned that the “inexcusable” losses, revealed as part of an Independent investigation, were ones the already overstretched health service can “ill afford”, calling for the NHS to protect itself better against fraud.

In total, the cost of fraud to the NHS in England was £101m in the five years to 2023/24.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/fraudsters-steal-100m-nhs-scammers-135850888.html/

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is appealing for information from the public in relation to a complex timeshare services scheme it believes was operated by an organised crime network.

This new SFO investigation is being announced after it intercepted suspected ongoing criminal activity.

In August, the SFO arrested a key suspect at Manchester Airport and searched his home address, going on to conduct four arrests of suspected accomplices and conduct three raids of properties across England the following month. The SFO was assisted by the National Crime Agency, Greater Manchester Police and Hertfordshire Constabulary in these operations.

It is suspected the companies cold called members of the public offering exit and/or compensation from timeshare or holiday clubs for an upfront fee between January 2018 and September 2024. No services are understood to have ever been provided in most cases.

People who purchased these services are then believed to have been contacted again and pressured into paying another upfront fee to recover their money on the basis that it was fraudulent.

https://www.wired-gov.net/wg/news.nsf/articles/public+appeal+for+information+on+organised+crime+network+13122024111000?open

Dr Gerald Martin Smith, currently in prison for Covid loan fraud, has been imprisoned for an additional 13 months for obstructing the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) from seizing his properties on behalf of the taxpayer.

The SFO uncovered that Smith sought to obstruct the confiscation of a flat by arranging for an acquaintance, London-based ophthalmologist Dr Robert Morris, to transfer ownership of his Bloomsbury property to a British Virgin Island’s company called Minardi Investments Ltd that Smith secretly controlled.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/convicted-fraudster-handed-fifth-prison-sentence

Effective data sharing between organisations and across different digital sectors is an important factor in preventing data-enabled scams and fraud.

The UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) do not prevent you from sharing personal information where it is appropriate to do so, or from taking steps to prevent harm.

This advice is aimed at private sector organisations across the digital economy such as financial services, telecommunications and digital platforms that want to share personal information with each other to support scam and fraud mitigation efforts.

Our role is to help and encourage organisations to carry out this data sharing in a confident, responsible and compliant way. That includes following the principles of the UK GDPR as well as ensuring that you respect people’s information rights.

The ICO continues to engage with private and public sector organisations to support efforts to prevent people being harmed from scams and fraud.

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/data-sharing/sharing-personal-information-when-preventing-detecting-and-investigating-scams-and-frauds/

Almost double the amount has been paid out to people who report suspected tax evasion. While the amounts given to whistleblowers are discretionary in the UK and not on par with the more lucrative system used in the USA, data shows that HMRC paid out nearly £1 million (£978,256) to people who provided actionable intelligence on tax fraud in 2023/24, up from £508,500 the previous year.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/hmrc-pay-tax-evasion-tip-125701958.html/