UK fraud leapt alarmingly in 2023. Whilst the volume reported at £2.3bn, was the second-largest annual fraud total in the last decade and represented a 104% increase on 2022, more than half of it derived from just two long-running cases.
The number of reported cases was also up by 18% this year to a three-year high, however it remains significantly below pre-pandemic levels.
In this report we discuss the recent trends in reported fraud cases. The two high level trends emerging from an analysis of the data over the last decade are that the number of reported cases of fraud is rising, and the amounts involved are getting bigger. Our report explores the detail behind these headlines.
FraudTrack data analysis is based on all reported fraud cases across the UK with a monetary value of over £50,000 from 1 December 2022 to 30 November 2023. Each year we analyse the nature of reported fraud from a variety of open news and reporting sources.
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Key findings include
- Total reported U.K. fraud value is £2.3 billion this year
- The number of high value frauds increased by 60% in 2023
- Corruption represented the top fraud type by value this year (at £594m or 26% of the total)
- Tax Frauds made up 23% of the UK frauds by value in 2023, ranking the second largest fraud type by value
- An increase in the use of technology has expanded the scale, reach and impact of cyber-enabled frauds, leading to large increases in reported online scams throughout 2022 and 2023
- London & the Southeast was the number one hot spot for reported fraud in 2023, see map below for the top 5 fraud hot spots
Fraud map