Scams fund slavery, trafficking and terror plots

SCAMS targeting millions of Britons are funding modern slavery, people trafficking and even terro rist plots, experts warn.

The fraudsters are paying organised-crime gangs to launder their ill-gotten money on a terrifying scale, while other scams are being run directly by those involved in terrorism and trafficking.

A guide produced for the Islamic State terror group even provides advice on how to scam ‘infidels’ to raise funds for jihadi activities. But MPs have warned that the authorities only know of ‘the tip of the iceberg’ because most fraud is undetected.

Experts said the revelations show fraud must be treated as a ‘national security threat’ and backed the Daily Mail’s Stop the Scammers campaign.

Tory MP Simon Fell, a member of the allparty parliamentary group on anti-corruption, said he had seen evidence that connects scammers targeting British victims ‘directly’ to modern slavery, people traffickers running illegal Channel crossings, and even terrorist financing.

He said a secret dossier, shared with him by law enforcement officials before he became an MP in 2019, showed fraud ‘predicates, drives and enables’ the most serious crimes in the UK. Mr Fell, who used to work for counter-fraud experts Cifas, added: ‘The scale of fraud is just phenomenal and we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg because there’s so much that’s under-reported.’

A guide written by an Islamic State supporter in 2015 provided advice on a range of scams that can earn ‘easy money’, arguing that the ‘blood, wealth and honour’ of nonMuslims is ‘not protected’.