London: Fraudsters are costing the UK a
whopping 73 billion pounds a year, the National Fraud
Authority (NFA) announced on Friday.
The estimate is based on the third Annual Fraud Indicator
report, which provides the best estimate of the cost of fraud
to the UK economy, official sources here said.
The estimate of fraud represents money that individuals,
businesses and Government can ill afford to lose ending up in
fraudsters? pockets, the NFA said and added that the new
estimate is significantly higher than previous attempts to
quantify the scale of the problem.
According to Stephen Harrison, chief executive of NFA,
the higher estimate was due to the improvement in the quality
and quantity of data available to produce an estimate of fraud
loss.
The latest estimate includes new sources of previously
undetected fraud.
The report shows how the NFA and its partners uncovered
losses which were previously hidden, helping organisations to
actively prevent this type of crime in the future.
Minister for Crime and Security James Brokenshire said,
For too long fraud has almost been seen as a victimless
crime.
It isn`t used by serious criminals to fund
anything from human trafficking to drug dealing and too often
victims are some of the most vulnerable members of our
community."
PTI
