City of London Police has revealed that its Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU) has prevented £85 million card and payment fraud during the first-half of 2021.
The unit was established by City of London Police and funded by the financial services trade and standards body of UK Finance.
Investigations by the DCPCU during 2021 led to the arrest of 67 suspected criminals, including several involved in scams exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic, with 24 organised criminal gangs disrupted.
A total of 49 criminals were convicted as a result of DCPCU investigations, in which the unit actively targeted crimes committed by scam texts/emails, counterfeit cards, false chargebacks and payments made by fake and collusive merchants.
Successful operations by the unit include the sentencing of an organised crime group that committed £1.2 million of fraud, and the jailing of a criminal who stole £172,000 from cash machines.
Working with UK Finance, the DCPCU was able to find 125 accounts promoting fraudulent scams across the channels of multiple social media firms.
Katy Worobec, Managing Director of Economic Crime at UK Finance, commented: “Fraud has a devastating emotional impact on victims and the money stolen goes on to fund serious organised crime, including terrorism, human trafficking and drugs smuggling.
“The DCPCU is central to the industry’s efforts to protect customers from fraud, disrupting the criminal gangs responsible and providing a strong deterrent to potential fraudsters.”
“The unit’s collaborative work with banks, social media companies, the telecoms sector and government has been instrumental in bringing criminals to justice and preventing fraud.”
