Fraud up 40% in 12 months amid blitz of online scams
CASES of fraud have jumped by more than 40% in a year with the rise attributed to an increase in online and phone scams, the Central Statistics Office has said.
The statistics show there were 11,253 instances of ‘fraud, deception and related offences’ across the country in the 12 months up to this June. This is up by 3,248 on the previous 12 months
CSO statistician Sam Scriven said of the figures: ‘The increase has occurred mostly in Q1 and Q2 of 2021 and primarily relates to fraudulent attempts to obtain personal or banking information online or by phone as well as fraudulent use of credit and debit card information.’
The next highest increase in reported crimes was for sexual offences, which grew by 7.5% in the year to the end of June.
‘Cancelled 999 calls not counted in stats’
In total, 3,241 incidents were reported, an increase of 227.
However, the CSO said that the impact of the cancelling of 999 calls on crime statistics is still to be determined because they were not recorded on the Garda Pulse system.
Mr Scriven said: ‘An internal An Garda Síochána investigation into the inappropriate cancellation of calls on its Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system is ongoing. The premature or improper cancellation of calls on the CAD system may mean that records relating to crimes, which were reported to An Garda Síochána, were not created on the Pulse system, and are therefore not counted in recorded crime statistics.
‘The CSO is awaiting clarification on the full impact of the issue from An Garda Síochána, including the time periods involved, the crime types impacted, and crucially, the estimated numbers of crimes which were not recorded on Pulse due to inappropriate cancellation of CAD calls, before it can determine the impact on recorded crime statistics.’
Controlled drug offences was the only other crime category to see an increase, with incidents rising by 1.2%. In total, there were 22,909 recorded offences, which represents an increase of 274 on the previous year.
While fraud, sexual offences, and drug offences saw an increase, other recorded crimes fell. A total of 3,778 offences were recorded for breaches of Covid19 regulations in Q2 this year, but this is a substantial drop from the 10,438 recorded in the first three months of 2021.
‘The reduction reflects the general easing of restrictions during Q2 relative to Q1,’ said Mr Scriven.
Instances of burglary dropped 37% in the year to the end of June, with theft down 22% and robbery falling 21%.
Instances of homicide dropped 26.3% while kidnapping and related offences fell 22.8%.
Offences against the Government, justice procedures, and organisation of crime registered a decrease of 28.3%.
Speaking about these reductions in crime figures, Mr Scriven said that people should note the varying Covid-19 restrictions in place for much of 2020 and 2021, and the ‘likely impact of such restrictions on levels of crime’ when considering these statistics.