A fraud squad is a police department which investigates fraud and other economic crimes, the largest of which in the United Kingdom is run by the City of London Police.
This unit is responsible for policing London's and the UK's main financial hub, as part of the City of London Police Economic Crime Department (ECD) It investigates what could be described as traditional fraud offences such as banking frauds; insurance frauds; investment frauds; insider dealing frauds; advance fee frauds and Internet frauds, amongst others. Each team is headed by a Detective Inspector who take it in turn on a weekly basis to act as the "Duty Squad" and they form the immediate response to any calls received concerning new fraud cases.
The Fraud Squad is a specialist area, usually a part of the Specialist Investigation Department, where officers are normally transferred from general detective duties with the Criminal Investigations Department (CID). Some officers will be nominated to work on specific cases for the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), they will also provide assistance and advice on policing matters to the SFO and Financial Services Authority.
The City of London Police has recruited accountancy specialists directly into its Special Constabulary, and these officers primary duties are assisting in complex fraud investigations. [1]
The Fraud Squad is part of the City of London Police Economic Crime Department (ECD) which also consists of:
The Ministry of Defence Police (MDP) also maintains a sizeable Fraud squad within its CID. This squad investigates serious fraud and corruption offences against the Ministry of Defence. Because of the scale of the MoD's annual budget, even a very small percentage lost to criminal activity has the potential to be a considerable sum.
The MDP's Fraud Squad works with procurement officers and the MoD Defence Fraud Analysis Unit (DFAU) in delivering fraud awareness and prevention advice across the MoD. The MDP Fraud Squad is one of only four in the UK accredited to deliver this nationally accredited fraud training for the MDP, Home Office Forces and Service Police. [2]
The Financial Crime Unit is a multi-agency unit, consisting of Police and Customs Officers, Police Support Staff and other Government Departments such as Internal Audit and HM Attorney General’s Chambers. [3]
The FCU's remit covers:
The unit is made up of three teams:
Source: [4]
In the year 2004-2005 benefit thieves stole around £900 million.
The DWP targets benefits fraud and benefit theft, which includes:
The National Health Service Counter Fraud Authority is a special health authority charged with identifying, investigating and preventing fraud and other economic crime within the NHS and the wider health group. https://cfa.nhs.uk/
Formed on 1 November 2017 under section 28 of the National Health Service Act 2006. It replaces its predecessor NHS Protect, which was part of the NHS Business Services Authority.
The Flying Squad is a branch of the Serious and Organised Crime Command within London's Metropolitan Police Service. It is also known as the Robbery Squad, Specialist Crime Directorate 7, SC&O7 and SO7. It is nicknamed The Sweeney, an abbreviation of the Cockney rhyming slang "Sweeney Todd".
The City of London Police is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the City of London, England, including the Middle and Inner Temples.
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is a non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom that investigates and prosecutes serious or complex fraud and corruption in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The SFO is accountable to the Attorney General for England and Wales, and was established by the Criminal Justice Act 1987, an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) was a non-departmental public body of the Government of the United Kingdom which existed from 1 April 2006 until 7 October 2013. SOCA was a national law enforcement agency with Home Office sponsorship, established as a body corporate under Section 1 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. It operated within the United Kingdom and collaborated with many foreign law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is the branch of a police force to which most plainclothes detectives belong in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth nations. A force's CID is distinct from its Special Branch. The name derives from the CID of the Metropolitan Police, formed on 8 April 1878 by C. E. Howard Vincent as a re-formation of its Detective Branch. British colonial police forces all over the world adopted the terminology developed in the UK in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and later the police forces of those countries often retained it after independence. English-language media often use "CID" as a translation to refer to comparable organisations in other countries.
The Specialist, Organised & Economic Crime Command is a unit within the Gangs and Organised Crime group of Specialist Crime & Operations within London's Metropolitan Police Service. The unit's main responsibility is to both investigate and take steps to prevent fraud, along with a wide range of other fraudulent crimes which require specialist knowledge and training to investigate. The unit was previously known as the fraud squad, or by its previous Specialist Operations designation, SO6.
Essex Police is a territorial police force responsible for policing the county of Essex, in the East of England. Essex Police is responsible for a population of over 1.8 million people and an area of 1,420 square miles (3,700 km2).
The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office (JSO) is a joint city-county law enforcement agency, which has primary responsibility for law enforcement, investigation, and corrections within the consolidated City of Jacksonville and Duval County, Florida, United States. Duval County includes the incorporated cities of Jacksonville, Atlantic Beach, Baldwin, Jacksonville Beach, and Neptune Beach; the beach cities have their own police departments as well.
Dame Barbara Jean Lyon Mills DBE, QC was a British barrister. She held various senior public appointments including Director of Public Prosecutions, and was widely seen as a pioneer for women gaining such appointments in the higher echelons of the legal profession. At the time of her death she was chair of the Professional Oversight Board.
The Korps landelijke politiediensten was the national police force in the Netherlands from 1993 until January 2013, responsible for specialist missions that benefited from a centralized approach.
The Allegheny County Police Department is a law enforcement agency in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The department provides law enforcement services on County property, including the Pittsburgh International Airport, the Allegheny County Airport, and various parks. Between 2017 and 2021, the ACPD was contracted by the borough of Wilmerding. It also provides assistance to all municipal law enforcement agencies in the County, and generally investigates all serious crimes, such as homicide, except in the City of Pittsburgh.
The Specialist Investigation Department is a branch of the Criminal Investigation Department of a British police force which investigates crimes such as murder and sexual offences supplying specially trained officers to monitor known ex-offenders who have a history of sex offences. This unit could be considered the same as Area Major Incident Pool of the Metropolitan Police Service. The Specialist Investigation Officers use the prefix "Detective" in front of their actual police rank. The team also responds to major investigations such as murder when divisional teams can not cope with the sheer amount of work.
The Fiscal Information and Investigation Service is an agency of the government of the Netherlands responsible for investigating financial crimes. It is part of the Tax and Customs Administration, which itself falls under the responsibility of the Dutch Ministry of Finance.
The Trinidad and Tobago Police Service or TTPS is the law enforcement agency of Trinidad and Tobago. It has been in operation for over 200 years.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) is a national law enforcement agency in the United Kingdom. It is the UK's lead agency against organised crime; human, weapon and drug trafficking; cybercrime; and economic crime that goes across regional and international borders, but it can be tasked to investigate any crime. The NCA has a strategic role as part of which it looks at serious crime in aggregate across the UK, especially analysing how organised criminals are operating and how they can be disrupted. To do this, it works closely with regional organised crime units (ROCUs), local police forces, and other government departments and agencies.
The Ministry of Defence Police (MDP) is a civilian special police force which is part of the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence. The MDP's primary responsibilities are to provide armed security and counter terrorism services to designated high-risk areas, as well as uniformed policing and limited investigative services to Ministry of Defence property, personnel, and installations throughout the United Kingdom. The MDP are not military police. Service personnel often refer to the MDP by the nickname "MOD plod".
The Garda National Economic Crime Bureau – informally known as the Fraud Squad – is a specialised division of Ireland's national police force, the Garda Síochána, that investigates economic crimes. The Bureau operates as part of the Garda Special Crime Operations branch and works alongside other sections of the force, as well as the external Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE), an agency tasked with investigating white-collar crime. The Economic Crime Bureau is responsible for the investigation of serious financial fraud and corruption. It was established in April 1996 and is based at Harcourt Square, Dublin 2. The GNECB is headed by an officer of Detective Chief Superintendent rank, who reports to the Assistant Commissioner of Special Crime Operations.
The Swedish Economic Crime Authority is a Swedish government agency organized under the Ministry of Justice, with the mandate to investigate and prosecute financial crimes, like dishonesty to creditors, bookkeeping crime, financial market abuse, money laundering, tax fraud and EU fraud. SECA is also tasked to monitor and analyse economic crime trends, initiate joint action between authorities and propose legislative changes designed curb economic crime. SECA primarily focusses on serious economic crime, with a special emphasis on investigating crime in the financial market and recovering the proceeds of crime.
Unaoil is a Monaco based company which provides "industrial solutions to the energy sector in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa." Unaoil is incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven with an opaque banking system.
Lisa Marie Osofsky is an American-British lawyer who served as Director of the UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) from September 2018 until August 2023. She was succeeded by Nick Ephgrave.