1 in 150 police officers cover online fraud

JUST one in 150 police officers is dedicated to tackling online fraud, even though it is the UK’s most common crime.

Spending watchdog the National Audit Office said the growing threat is being ‘overlooked’ by the police, banks and the Government, and that ‘urgent’ change is needed.

Its damning report said there were almost 2 million online fraud incidents in the year to September 2016 – 16 per cent of all crimes – and that the cost of this is likely to run to ‘billions of pounds’. Just 1 per cent of scams reported to police end in prosecution.