UK fraud costing '£193bn a year', new study suggests (original) (raw)

The annual cost of fraud in the UK has been estimated at £193bn - equal to nearly £3,000 per head of population - according to a new report.

Business fraud accounted for £144bn, the study, external said, while fraud against individuals was estimated at £9.7bn.

The last estimate - made in 2013 by the now defunct National Fraud Authority - put the cost of fraud at £52bn a year.

Report author Prof Mark Button said that fraud was now on an "industrial scale".

The study was produced by Experian, PKF Littlejohn, and the Centre for Counter-Fraud Studies at the University of Portsmouth.

According to the Annual Fraud Indicator 2016, the biggest loss was due to procurement fraud - estimated at £127bn a year - which included the submission of false invoices and the awarding of contracts in exchange for bribes.

The fraudulent cost to charities was estimated at £2bn per year, while mortgage lending losses were put at £1.3bn a year.

Insurance sector fraud cost £1.3bn a year, tax fraud was estimated at £15.4bn every year, while fraud losses in the NHS were £2.5bn.

The largest fraud carried out against individuals was identity fraud, estimated at £5.4bn a year from about 3.25 million victims.