UK intelligence agencies to step up anti-fraud efforts

Britain’s intelligence agencies will step up efforts to “identify and disrupt” overseas fraudsters as part of a push by ministers to curb financial scams, which are estimated to cost the UK about £7bn a year.

The development is part of the government’s national fraud strategy, due to be published in full on Wednesday, which will also set out plans to clamp down on common methods of attack used by scammers.

“Fraud is a blight on our country with ruthless criminals scamming the British public out of their hard-earned cash,” said home secretary Suella Braverman on Tuesday ahead of the release of the strategy. “It is vital we adopt a new approach to this threat.”

The government said intelligence agencies would work alongside 400 new specialist police investigators, local forces and international partners in an effort to ensure scams were “stopped at source”.

UK security services already play a prominent role in tackling cyber crime. Last year, the National Cyber Security Centre, part of signals intelligence agency GCHQ, responded to 2.1mn phishing attempts and other scams targeting the public and small businesses.

Some 2.7mn cyber-related acts of fraud occurred in 2022, according to the NCSC. In its most recent annual review, the agency identified Russia, China, Iran and North Korea as the four big state actors that posed an “acute cyber threat” to Britain.

Helena Wood, co-head of the UK economic crime programme at RUSI, a think-tank, said using the intelligence community was “absolutely the right approach to take, focusing more on disrupting the problem than trying to arrest our way out of it”.

“We have to take the same tactics we use for other national security threats like terrorism and organised crime,” she added.

Other measures include a ban on cold calls for all financial products and work with Ofcom, the media regulator, on new technology to crack down on number spoofing, whereby scammers contact victims using the phone numbers of trusted groups.

The strategy had been due out in February but was delayed after several Whitehall departments raised concerns over proposals to force companies to pay compensation to victims of online financial scams, according to people familiar with the matter.

Ministers have now dropped that policy and will instead announce a voluntary agreement with the tech industry, whereby platforms will pledge to take a more proactive approach to reducing online fraud.

Rocio Concha, director of policy and advocacy at consumer rights group Which?, welcomed the strategy’s “joined-up approach” but cautioned that “more action” was needed “to guarantee that big tech platforms take serious action against fraud”.

“Ultimately, consumers will judge the success of this strategy by whether they end up with better fraud detection, prevention, support and redress,” she said.

Ministers will also confirm that a replacement for Action Fraud, the national fraud reporting service whose performance has been criticised, will be operational by the end of this year.

Responding to Tuesday’s announcement, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said fraud was “a pernicious crime” and that the government’s plan was “too little, too late and fails to match the scale of the problem”.