Britain has become the global capital of fraud, with losses rocketing to almost £3billion a year, a Daily Mail investigation reveals today.
The losses per person in the UK are far higher than in other leading Western economies, including the United States, Canada and Australia.
And the situation is getting worse as criminals exploit the cost of living squeeze to find new ways to con the elderly and vulnerable. This horrific new ‘wave’ of scams led to fraudsters stealing £700million in April, compared with an average of £200million a month over the previous year.
The Mail’s investigation also found:
- Just one in seven frauds are reported to the police or Action Fraud, according to the Office for National Statistics;
- A vast number of cases go undetected, leading experts to estimate the real annual cost to the economy at a shocking £137 billion;
- Despite fraud being the most common crime in the country, only 2 per cent of police officers in England and Wales were dedicated to investigating it last year;
- Only one in 1,000 reports of fraud resulted in a charge in 2021;
- More than 40 million adults in the UK – nearly three in four – have already been targeted by a scammer this year;
- Britain also has by far the highest level of credit and debit card fraud in Europe.
Today the Mail launches a campaign calling for a major overhaul to the system, starting with the appointment of a minister for fraud.
This newspaper is also demanding that police make tackling fraud a…
