Cifas and law enforcement
Cifas collaborates with police and law enforcement agencies to assist them in the prevention of fraud and financial crime. We work with them to protect the public and the UK economy from the adverse effects of economic crimes. We also support them in the disruption of fraudsters who are harming the organisations that contribute to our databases.
Chris Greany, the former National Coordinator for Economic Crime, City of London Police – the lead police force for fraud – discusses how collaborating with Cifas helps in the fight against financial crime. (Taken from our Annual Report 2015.)
Essential fraud and financial crime intelligence
The operational intelligence we provide supports the police and law enforcement in the detection and apprehension of criminals in many ways, including:
- Supplying our member organisations’ fraud reports from the National Fraud Database to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) on a daily basis, to support the development of crime packages disseminated to UK police for investigation and prosecution;
- Supplying Cifas information to the National Crime Agency to support specific operations into suspected money laundering, corrupt professionals, and intelligence building on other types of financial crime;
- Providing a free service for UK police officers to make specific requests for information on potential suspects as part of their day to day operations; and
- Providing local police with reports of fraud and financial crime that help them pursue individuals committing other crime e.g. drugs or immigration crime.
Keeping the police and the public aware
We also provide strategic intelligence to police, government and law enforcement to identify advantageous opportunities, including:
- Working with local police forces to identity potential ‘persons of interest’ carrying out fraud or financial crime in their force area and who they may not be aware of;
- Statistical analysis on the number and location of individuals who have had their identity compromised, so as to inform targeted awareness campaigns for the general public e.g. on protecting your identity details;
- Supplying information directly to local police to help them target their limited resources on financial criminals causing the most harm in their local area; and
- Providing key information on fraud threats, trends and enablers to the National Crime Agency and other government departments to inform their national strategic assessments of crime across the UK.
The latest fraud and financial crime statistics
Cifas reports, as passed to the NFIB, also contribute to national crime statistics on fraud, collated by the Office of National Statistics. This helps raise the profile of fraud and financial crime, so that appropriate government officials are better informed of the nature and scale of economic crime when creating national counter-economic crime policies.
Organised Fraud and Intelligence Group
Law enforcement are also able to attend the Organised Fraud and Intelligence Group (OFIG) meetings, which are the central route we offer for intelligence and investigation professionals to share information with each other on fraud threats, trends, and techniques.
More information on our OFIG page.
