Counter-fraud

In its half year Fraudscape report, Cifas has revealed in the range of external and internal fraud risks faced by organisations. These substantial and growing threats come against a backdrop of additional legal requirements for organisations to put ’reasonable procedures’ in place to prevent fraud.

Between January-June 2023, Cifas members recorded just over 186,500 cases of fraudulent conduct to the National Fraud Database. Particularly notable within these numbers is the scale and growth in attacks on both customers and companies.

In the past year, a third of students said they were victims of some type of fraud or scam.

New research produced by NatWest shows that a third of students have encountered a scam in the past year.

Imagine you are driving your car and the engine light appears on your dashboard. What do you do? Ignore it and hope that it is a fluke and that whatever the issue is will go away, or do you take your auto to your mechanic to find out what the problem is and what the cost will be to repair it? The engine light is a reg flag, a warning sign that something is amiss with the engine. There may be an engine light issue or a serious problem that needs immediate attention. Regardless of which one it is, conventional wisdom tells us to pursue the potential problem with the engine.

A business may have red flags, warning signs to let you know if something is not right in your business. If one is aware of the red flags, you should be able to see if you are a victim of fraud. It is important to note that these red flags do not mean fraud is occurring. It means the red flag should be investigated.

Currently, companies which benefit from fraudulent acts by employees or contractors are rarely prosecuted, but that will almost certainly change when new laws come into force which make it far easier to prosecute and to hold companies criminally liable for failing to prevent frauds from which they benefit.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/corporate-fraud-is-the-new-priority-focus-in-the-fight-against-the-fraud-pandemic-tom-stocker-4251116

We’ve almost all received a “hi mum” message trying to defraud us, but for the victims who fall for the scammers, we must have a safety net, writes Chris Hayward.

Sixty years ago today, a travelling post office train carrying millions of pounds in bank notes left Glasgow Central for London Euston. It was supposed to be a routine journey, except the train never arrived.

Nearing the end of its eight-hour trip, at just after 3am the following day, the train ground to a halt and 15 men executed their intricate plan to rob its valuable cargo.

https://www.cityam.com/from-train-robberies-to-hi-mum-texts-we-are-fighting-an-ever-changing-face-of-fraud/

Ricky – also known as Ravinder – Gill, 40, of Saville Road, Chadwell Heath, London, was sentenced to a total of eight months imprisonment suspended for 18 months for fraud by false representation, when he appeared at Lewes Crown Court on Thursday, July 27, Sussex Police said.

https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/man-scammed-worthing-romance-fraud-151223267.html/

I have been asked to share the top five things I have learnt in my career so far about chasing fraudsters and trying to recover stolen assets.

When I first started doing this type of work, I remember being somewhat impressed by the complicated webs that fraudsters often had set up well in advance of committing the particular fraud in question, which frequently included a web of international bank accounts through which flowed digital transactions that could be difficult to trace.

Bank and building society staff who are trained in spotting scam warning signs stopped £55.5m of fraud last year, according to industry figures.

There were also 197 arrests of criminals and staff made 11,643 phone calls to the police regarding potential fraud incidents.

https://www.yourmoney.com/saving-banking/bank-staff-prevented-55m-worth-of-fraud-last-year/

In her recent letter to the Home Secretary, Emily Thornberry’s criticism of the government’s recently launched Fraud Strategy was unequivocal – though welcome, the long-delayed strategy in her view “does not come anywhere close to what we need”.

https://labourlist.org/2023/07/there-are-practical-ways-for-labour-to-tackle-the-fraud-epidemic/

First new enhancement, the Detect fraud and error identification tool for all payment types, now live

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND / ACCESSWIRE / July 18, 2023 / AccessPay, the leading bank integration provider, is pleased to announce the release of its new fraud and error identification tool, Detect. The launch of Detect marks the first in a series of anti-fraud and error prevention tools that AccessPay will be releasing over the coming months to support the UK's corporates in proactively managing fraud and building operational resilience, as required by the new "UK SOx" corporate governance reforms1.