A “victimless crime”? Why the fraud police need a redesign

In 2024, 4.1 million people were victims of fraud, which made 43 percent of all crime alone, which were affected by over 16 in England and Wales at the age of over 16, and the national fraud strategy of the government estimates that the fraud fraud costs £ 6.8 billion a year.

But our police institutions have not obtained the scale of this change. We have a local police structure of the 1960s that tries to combat a cyber-capable cross-border crime of the 21st century. As a result, the police only achieved limited success and the victims receive too little as a service. However, fraud is not a “sacrificial thing about sacrifices”. The recent research results of the Police Foundation have shown that fraud can have both psychological and financial effects on those who experience it.

This report contains eight recommendations for changes. This includes a focus on crime prevention, organizational reform, including the creation of a single national body for the management and coordination of the reaction to fraud, cooperation with the private sector, a workforce for economic crime and ring teeth that the fight against fraud is sufficient with resources.