Fraud Statistics

Keywords

Reports, Scams, Fraud, NFIB, Victims, Money, Cyber-enabled, Email, Social media, Telephone, Postal, Doorstep, Romance, Investment, Pensions, Authorised push payment, Criminal, Convictions, Actively, Investigated, Resulted, Prosecutions, Cases, Closed, Awaiting, Trial, Recovered, Investigations.

Publication Number

PUB 1346

FOI Reference Number

15975

Request Title

Fraud Statistics

Date Range

23rd March 2019 to 23rd March 2021

Information Requested

I would like to make a request please under the Freedom of Information Act regarding reports of scams and fraud – including those made directly to the force and those passed to the force by the NFIB.

In responses to all questions below, please include reports of all types of fraud and scams where victims have lost money. (For example: cyber-enabled fraud (such as email scams and scams operating using social media); telephone scams; postal scams; doorstep scams; romance fraud; investment and pensions scams; ‘authorised push payment’ scams and all other types of fraud and scams where victims lost money.

1. How many reports of fraud and scams – where victims lost money - did you receive in the 12 months from 23rd March 2019 to 23rd March 2020?

2. How many reports of fraud and scams – where victims lost money - did you receive in the 12 months from 23rd March 2020 to 23rd March 2021?

The following six questions all relate to the reports of fraud and scams included in your answer to question 2 (those you received in the 12 months from 23rd March 2020 to 23rd March 2021):

3. Of the reports included in your answer to question 2 (those you received in the 12 months from 23rd March 2020 to 23rd March 2021), how many were actively investigated at any stage?

4. Of the reports included in your answer to question 2 (those you received in the 12 months from 23rd March 2020 to 23rd March 2021), how many have resulted in prosecution/s?

5. Of the reports included in your answer to question 2 (those you received in the 12 months from 23rd March 2020 to 23rd March 2021), how many have resulted in criminal conviction/s of those responsible?

6. Excluding those which have resulted in criminal conviction/s of those responsible, in how many of the cases included in your answer to question 2 (those of which you received reports in the 12 months from 23rd March 2020 to 23rd March 2021) have cases been closed?

7. Of the cases included in your answer to question 2 (those of which you received reports in the 12 months from 23rd March 2020 to 23rd March 2021), in how many are proceedings or investigations still active? (Including those being actively investigated, those awaiting trial and those where trials are in progress).

8. Of the reports included in your answer to question 2 (those you received in the 12 months from 23rd March 2020 to 23rd March 2021), in how many cases was victims’ money recovered from those responsible as a result of your investigations?

Disclosure with Exemptions

Full Refusal with Section 12 Exemption

Information Correct as at

N/A

Date of Disclosure

17 December 2021

Related Documents/Links

Dashboard FINAL VERSION (arcgis.com)

https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/

https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/what-is-national-fraud-intelligence-bureau

https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/a-z-of-fraud

FOI 15975 Response

Having completed enquiries within Essex Police in respect of Section 1(1)(a), Essex Police does hold information relating to your request, however, the obligation of Section 1(1)(b) cannot be met as Essex Police does not hold all the information requested in a format that allows it to be retrieved within the time and cost limits of FOI.

When responding to a request for information under the terms of the FOIA, a public authority is not obliged to provide information if the authority estimates that the cost of the retrieval of the information requested would be in excess of £450 (equivalent to 18 hours work).  The costs criteria relates to a request in its entirety, which means that if we cannot retrieve all of the information requested within the costs limit, we are not obliged to retrieve any of the information requested.

Section 12(1) of the FOIA states that a public authority is not obliged to:

“…comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.”

The following explanation outlines the difficulty Essex Police has in answering your request:

Essex Police are unable to accurately extract the level of detail in relation to your request from our current systems.  Essex Police systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not primarily for the production of statistical information for FOI responses.  Essex Police do not record crime figures for fraud.  Recorded crime figures for fraud are recorded and collected by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), which sits alongside Action Fraud.  Some crimes are referred back to Essex Police for investigation, however, prior to January 2021, our Crime Recording System did not include a field that would allow us to identify the specific type of fraud offence to be able to provide a breakdown.  This request would entail manually extracting all crime records for the requested period and then reviewing each case one by one to establish if it meets the criteria. 

In addition, we do not record conviction data on the Athena Custody system (this is held by the Crown Prosecution Service).  This request would also entail manually extracting the requested data, manually reviewing each record one by one to establish if there was a charge and then cross referring on the Police National Computer (PNC) to establish the outcome and conviction data. 

To establish if information is held would, therefore, exceed the time and cost limits under the FOIA and would qualify as the creation of data as the results cannot be processed by means of purely sorting or filtering data sources or running a database query tool. There is no requirement under the act to create data purely to answer FOI requests.

Consequently, and to this extent, Essex Police are exempt from the duty to provide information you have requested under the provisions of Section 12(1) of the FOIA.  Therefore, and in accordance with Section 17(1) of the FOIA, this communication must act as a refusal notice to provide all of the information that could be interpreted as being captured by this part of your request.

Section 16(1) of the FOIA provides that a public authority is required to provide advice and assistance, Essex Police can confirm that for statistics prior to January 2021, the Crime Recording System did not include a field that would allow us to identify the specific type of Fraud Offence to be able to provide a breakdown.  Since the beginning of 2021, the Fraud Team have either been adding Keywords/Tags to Fraud Crimes, therefore, we may be able to identify the specific type of Fraud Offence to be able to provide a breakdown. 

The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) Fraud and Cyber Crime Dashboard is Fraud reported that occurred in Essex.  The dashboard is the total Fraud Crimes reported for Essex (but not collated by Essex Police) – please see below link:

Dashboard FINAL VERSION (arcgis.com)

This reporting occurs at a national level via the Action Fraud Service.  The NFIB then disseminate some of those crimes to Essex Police for investigation.  We can only provide statistics for Fraud Crimes that have been allocated and investigated by Essex Police. 

The intention of Section 16 is to provide assistance in resubmitting a valid request.  Please note that any advice and assistance under Section 16 regarding resubmission of a request does not indicate that resubmission will provide a full disclosure, each submission will be assessed and if a disclosure is deemed harmful, then the appropriate exemptions will apply.

You may also find the below links of interest:

https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/

https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/what-is-national-fraud-intelligence-bureau

https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/a-z-of-fraud