Covid fraud: £34.5m stolen in pandemic scams

[ritcha filterfar]

More than 6,000 cases of Covid-related fraud and cyber-crime have been recorded by the UK's police forces during the pandemic.

The Action Fraud team said £34.5m had been stolen since 1 March 2020.

It covers activity in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but not Scotland.

In a related development, the National Cyber Security Centre has told the BBC it is tackling about 30 "significant attacks" a month against the country's pandemic response infrastructure.

These involves attempts to breach the NHS, vaccine producers and vaccine supply chains, among other organisations.

"There unfortunately have been a number of successful ransomware incidents against businesses - I can think of roughly around 10," NCSC operations director Paul Chichester said.

Twin peaks
Other figures disclosed by City of London Police, which co-ordinates efforts to combat fraud, include:

more than 150 related arrests were made since the pandemic began
more than 2,000 websites, phone numbers and email addresses linked to the crimes were taken down
there was a total of 416,000 reports of fraud and cyber-crime
The activity peaked between April and May 2020, and January 2021 - both times when lockdowns were in force.But this may be the tip of the iceberg.

The National Crime Agency estimates that just one in five fraud cases are typically reported to the police.

And the volunteer-run Cyber Helpline told the BBC only a quarter of those who had contacted it after a cyber-attack said they had also reported the incident to the police.

Bank loan scam
Many of the scams involved conning people out of their money and financial details by focusing on internet shopping.

Related fraud was 42% higher over the pandemic than the preceding year, as criminals took advantage of the fact many physical stores had been forced to close.

Anna - not her real name - from Cheltenham was one of thousands of people who received an SMS message asking her to go online and rearrange a parcel delivery.

She filled in her details, but later suspected something was wrong. She alerted her bank and cancelled her bank card.

Recommended Source: joker gaming