The UK faces a significant fraud epidemic, with over £1 billion lost in 2023 and underreporting suggesting higher actual losses. Despite fraud being widespread, it receives minimal police resources, and prosecution delays persist. To address this, recommendations include incentivizing whistleblowers, harsher sentences for fraudsters, reducing reliance on Deferred Prosecution Agreements, and establishing a National Fraud Squad. A comprehensive, multi-faceted approach involving both public and pri
United KingdomCriminal Law
The UK is in the grip of a silent epidemic. Recent
analysis1 reveals that over £1 billion was lost by
financial institutions due to payment fraud in 2023, with these
figures remaining stubbornly high over the last four years. Yet the
true scale of the problem is far greater; the National Crime
Agency2 estimates that only 13 percent of frauds are
reported, and a study by the Association of Certified Fraud
Examiners suggests that organisations lose 5 percent of their
revenue to fraud.3 In respect of the FTSE 250, this
would amount to more than £19.2 billion. And, according to
the National Audit Office, the amount of fraud in government
expenditure alone rose from a total of £5.5 billion in the
two years before the pandemic (2018-19 and 2019-20) to a total of
£21 billion in the following two years.4 Of that
£21 billion, (only) £7.3 billion relates to temporary
COVID-19 schemes.
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