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British police are to join with the FBI and US Secret Service agents to mount a crackdown on call centres scamming victims worldwide, as Interpol issued a global alert on the threat.
Writing in The Telegraph, James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, revealed the plans for the link-up with the National Crime Agency (NCA) amid growing concerns over the global spread of call-centres using trafficked victims to send out millions of scam texts or make fraudulent calls.
Interpol has classed it as a “serious and imminent threat to public safety” because of the industrial scale of scam calls and texts being sent out impersonating representatives from major companies like Microsoft, banks, utilities and HMRC to persuade victims to hand over money or personal data.
The international police agency’s global Orange Notice to member countries follows evidence that the online scam centres which were concentrated in Cambodia have spread to multiple other Asian and African countries, with Britons being bombarded with an estimated 21 million scam calls a month, equivalent to eight a second.
“I am excited to announce that our NCA, the FBI, US Secret Service and America’s Homeland Security Investigations will be working together to tackle call centre frauds across the world, sharing their world-class expertise and stepping up the fight back against fraudsters,” writes Mr Cleverly.
“This is the kind of co-operation we need to defeat a truly evil crime. And we know it works. We must do more to work together across the world.
“We need to share more data and intelligence internationally, raise global standards, and make tackling fraud an international priority. Different countries’ law enforcement teams already collaborate, but we need to redouble our efforts.”
Criminal gangs using large-scale human trafficking
It comes ahead of the world’s first global fraud summit on Monday hosted by the UK where ministers and officials from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea as well as the UK and US will discuss ways to boost international co-operation to combat fraud.
More than 200 representatives from banking, tech and telecommunications will attend the two-day summit, alongside leading civil society organisations to consider what the private sector can improve to prevent fraud and reimburse victims of scams.
Interpol said organised crime gangs were using large-scale human trafficking to lure victims with fake job ads to work in online scam centres and then forced to commit cyber-enabled financial crime on an industrial scale.
Victims at the centres were often extorted to cooperate through debt bondage where their low pay does not cover the cost of accommodation and food supplied by the gangs. It can be accompanied by beatings, torture, sexual exploitation and even alleged organ harvesting, according to Interpol.
The trafficked workers are used to perpetrate payment and investment impersonation frauds as well as romance and gambling scams.
Intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic including GCHQ and MI6 and US Secret Service have been drafted in to bring their intelligence gathering expertise to tackle fraud, some 70 per cent of which originates from abroad.
Home Office sources said the US-UK cooperation over call centres would include intelligence sharing as well as joint operations using covert and technological investigative techniques to help local police disrupt and dismantle the crime gangs behind the frauds.
Jürgen Stock, Interpol general secretary, said: “It is important that there are no safe havens for financial fraudsters to operate. We must close existing gaps and ensure information sharing between sectors and across borders is the norm, not the exception. This summit is both timely, and needed.”
Graeme Biggar, the NCA’s director general, said: “Over 70 per cent of fraud has an international element, and it is clear that we need an efficient and effective joint response with partners across the globe.”
Why the Government is taking the fight to the fraudsters like never before
By James Cleverly, Home Secretary
Fraud is a horrendous crime. Accounting for nearly 40 per cent of all crime, it is the most common in the country, with anyone being a potential victim.
Fraudsters not only go after innocent people, but can also cause colossal harm to our economy, and seriously damage trust in legitimate businesses.
Taking on them on, and winning, is vital.
We recently launched the “Stop! Think Fraud” campaign and you will see adverts offering advice on how to stop fraud, protect yourself, and what to do if you are targeted. There is a new special dedicated website to bring this advice together in one place. We have also set up a new National Fraud Squad with hundreds of special investigators.
Last year we signed the world’s first Online Fraud Charter with 12 of the world’s biggest tech companies. Moreover, social media companies can now be fined if fraud is committed on their platforms. And we have introduced a new offence when there is a failure to prevent fraud, along with giving the police greater powers to seize assets held in crypto currency.
Our plan to tackle fraud is working, and it is down by 13 per cent in England and Wales, but there is more to do. Fraudsters don’t rest – with criminal gangs operate in multiple countries, using more and more sophisticated techniques – and neither will we.
‘This is a major moment in the fight against crime’
We know that fraud is a global problem, with around 70 per cent of all offences in the UK having ties to overseas criminals, with £3 billion lost to overseas accounts last year. Reversing this trend is not possible without a united global community.
That’s why next week the UK is hosting the first ever Global Fraud Summit, bringing together governments, industry leaders, international organisations, and law enforcement and focusing the minds of the international community on how we can work better together to clamp down on fraud.
This a major moment in the international fight against this crime.
We must do more to work together across the world. We need to share more data and intelligence internationally, raise global standards, and make tackling fraud an international priority. Different countries’ law enforcement teams already collaborate, but we need to redouble our efforts.
I am excited to announce that our National Crime Agency, the FBI, United States Secret Service and America’s Homeland Security Investigations will be working together to tackle call centre frauds across the world, sharing their world-class expertise and stepping up the fight back against fraudsters. This is the kind of co-operation we need to defeat a truly evil crime. And we know it works.
The Global Fraud Summit will go further again by bring together government ministers and representatives from the UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and the United States. More than 200 representatives from across the banking, tech and telecommunications sectors will be there too, along with civil society organisations such as Victim Support.
We are united in our commitment to take on and smash the fraudsters.
This is never a victimless crime. And we will not tolerate it. The UK is leading a global effort that will take the fight to the fraudsters like never before.
Source: The Telegraph