National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) reports received during 2019/20

Roedd y cais yn llwyddiannus.

Dear Cleveland Police,

Request 1

For each month in the financial year 2019/20, please provide the number of reports of fraud passed to you from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) to investigate.

Request 2

Please provide the number of individuals charged with offences in connection with the reports identified in Request 1.

Yours faithfully,

D Moore

Freedom of Information, Cleveland Police

This mailbox is for Freedom of Information requests only and all other
mail will be deleted unactioned.

 

For Legal please forward your e-mail to
[1][email address] and for Subject Access please
check the Subject Access section of the Cleveland Police website under the
heading of ‘Advice and Information’ or forward your e-mail to
[2][email address] for all other
enquiries please contact Cleveland Police via 101.

 

References

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1. mailto:[email address]
2. mailto:[email address]

Freedom of Information, Cleveland Police

Enquiry ref: 12702-21

I acknowledge receipt of your enquiry received by this office on 11th March.

As set out by the Freedom of Information Act it will be our aim to respond to your request by 13th April. In some cases, however, we may be unable to achieve this deadline and would hope to contact you should this be the case.

However although every effort will be made to ensure a response is provided within statutory deadlines, due to current circumstances delays may be unavoidable. We apologise for any inconvenience and will endeavour to process your request as quickly as is practicable.

Please note the ‘working day’ is defined as any day other than a Saturday, Sunday or a day which is a bank holiday in any part of the United Kingdom. The first reckonable day is the first working day after receipt.

If you have any questions regarding your request please contact this office.

Yours sincerely

Mrs M Johnson
Freedom of Information Decision Maker
Department of Standard & Ethics | 1 Cliffland Way | Hemlington | TS8 9GL

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dangos adrannau a ddyfynnir

Freedom of Information, Cleveland Police

Dear D Moore,

Enquiry Reference: 12702 -21

I write in connection with regards to your request received in this office on 11th March. I note you seek the following:

For each month in the financial year 2019/20, please provide the number of reports of fraud passed to you from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) to investigate.
Request 2
Please provide the number of individuals charged with offences in connection with the reports identified in Request 1.
a) Having made enquiries within the Force our answer on this occasion is no information held, we are unable to differentiate which fraud have been sent from Action fraud and what we have recorded in Force however this information might be held by Action Fraud.

The Cleveland Police response to your request is unique and it should be noted that Police Forces do not use generic systems or identical procedures to capture and record data therefore responses from Cleveland Police should not be used as a comparison with any other force response you receive.

If you are not satisfied with this response or any actions taken in dealing with your request you have the right to request an independent internal review of your case under our review procedure. The APP College of Policing guidance states that a request for internal review should be made within 20 working days of the date on this response or 40 working days if extenuating circumstances to account for the delay can be evidenced.

We have made every effort to ensure a response was provided within statutory deadlines, however due to current circumstances delays have been unavoidable. If your response was late we apologise for any inconvenience it may have caused and thank you for your patience. If we can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact this office.

Yours sincerely,

Ms E McGuigan
Freedom of Information Decision Maker
Directorate of Standards and Ethics
Cleveland Community Safety Hub | 1 Cliffland Way | Hemlington | TS8 9GL
E-mail: [email address]

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn

       
Public Service | Transparency | Impartiality | Integrity

“Delivering outstanding policing for our communities”

Please do not use social media or email to report crime as we do not monitor these accounts 24/7. Dial 999 in an emergency or visit the contact us section of our website for all reporting options.

dangos adrannau a ddyfynnir

Dear Cleveland Police,

Enquiry Reference: 12702 -21

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Cleveland Police's handling of my FOI request 'National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) reports received during 2019/20'.

You responded:

'a) Having made enquiries within the Force our answer on this occasion is no information held, we are unable to differentiate which fraud have been sent from Action fraud and what we have recorded in Force however this information might be held by Action Fraud.'

You have failed to convince me that you do not hold the information I have requested. In any event, could you not ask Action Fraud to provide you again with the information they have already provided to you?

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/n...

Yours faithfully,

D. Moore

Freedom of Information, Cleveland Police

This mailbox is for Freedom of Information requests only and all other
mail will be deleted unactioned.

 

For Legal please forward your e-mail to
[1][email address] and for Subject Access please
check the Subject Access section of the Cleveland Police website under the
heading of ‘Advice and Information’ or forward your e-mail to
[2][email address] for all other
enquiries please contact Cleveland Police via 101.

 

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[email address]
2. mailto:[email address]

Freedom of Information, Cleveland Police

Dear Mr/Ms Moore

Enquiry Ref: 12702-21

I acknowledge receipt of your email dated 19th May requesting that we review our response to your request for information.

The review will be conducted and we will aim to respond by 18th May. However, if we are unable to complete the review by this date we will advise you accordingly.

If we can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact this office.

Mrs M Johnson
Freedom of Information Decision Maker
Department of Standard & Ethics | 1 Cliffland Way | Hemlington | TS8 9GL

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn

Public Service | Transparency | Impartiality | Integrity

“Delivering outstanding policing for our communities”

Please do not use social media or email to report crime as we do not monitor these accounts 24/7. Dial 999 in an emergency or visit the contact us section of our website for all reporting options.

dangos adrannau a ddyfynnir

Gadawodd D. Moore anodiad ()

Informative DN:

'15. ...

Action Fraud Process

When a person becomes a victim of fraud the report should be made to the national reporting centre of Action Fraud either online or over the telephone. That report is allocated a national crime number referred to as an NFRC number. The report is then passed to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), which is part of the City of London Police as the lead force for fraud. NFIB then assess and triage the report and will file it if there are no reasonable lines of enquiry identified from the information provided.

If there are identified lines of enquiry, NFIB will then disseminate that report to the relevant investigative agency. Typically this is based on the address of the offender (if one has been identified) as fraud offenders can and do offend against multiple victims across the country. However if no offender hasbeen identified then it will be allocated to the investigative agency with jurisdiction over the home address of the victim.

All NFIB disseminations made to WMP are further assessed and triage [sic] by the InvestigationManagement Team within the EconomicCrime Unit (ECU). The Unit is responsible for obtaining the WMP fraud non-crime number (cross referenced with the NFRC) to ensure that the dissemination has a local record. The WMP non-crime number is under the general heading of fraud and is not further classified by the type of fraud involved.NFIB disseminations are classified by the type of fraud relevant to the report. There are 55 types of fraud report.'

IC-49308-W6Z2

https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-tak...

RUMINS, Samantha (C8894),

1 Atodiad

Dear Mr Moore

 

Enquiry ref: 12702-21

 

I have been requested to carry out an internal review of Cleveland
Police’s response to your FOI request.

 

By request dated 11^th March 2021 you raised the following questions:

 

For each month in the financial year 2019/20, please provide the number of
reports of fraud passed to you from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau
(NFIB) to investigate.

Request 2

Please provide the number of individuals charged with offences in
connection with the reports identified in Request 1.

 

Your request was refused by the Freedom of Information Decision Maker as
she found that the information was not held by Cleveland Police in that
‘having made enquiries within the Force our answer on this occasion is no
information held, we are unable to differentiate which fraud have been
sent from Action fraud and what we have recorded in Force however this
information might be held by Action Fraud’.

 

I have reviewed your request and my response is no information held. As
per the response from the Freedom of Information Decision Maker, the
information might be held by Action Fraud. Further information regarding
making a request for information from Action Fraud can be located via the
following webpage:

[1]https://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/foi-a....

 

Please treat this as a refusal notice under Section 17 of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.

 

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of this internal review you can
appeal to the Information Commissioner at the following address:

 

The Information Commissioners Office

Wycliffe House

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

 

Or alternatively email [2][email address]

 

Kind regards

 

Sam Rumins

 

 

 

 

C8894 Samantha Rumins

Senior Paralegal/Practice Manager

Evolve Collaborative Legal Services

 

Community Safety Hub | 1 Cliffland Way | Hemlington | TS8 9GL

Postal Address –  St Marks House | St Marks Court | Thornaby | Stockton on
Tees | TS17 6QW

DX 68801 Middlesbrough 7

 

 

[3]cid:image001.png@01D69262.86CDE8A0

 

Find us on LinkedIn at Evolve Legal

 

Public Service | Transparency | Impartiality | Integrity

 

WITH REGRET, DUE TO COVID-19, THE OFFICE IS CURRENTLY CLOSED. HOWEVER,
STAFF ARE NOW WORKING REMOTELY. PLEASE SEND ALL CORRESPONDENCE VIA EMAIL
TO [4][email address]. WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR
CO-OPERATION AND UNDERSTANDING WHILE WE DEAL WITH THIS EMERGENCY
SITUATION.

 

Please do not use social media or email to report crime as we do not
monitor these accounts 24/7. Dial 999 in an emergency or visit the
[5]contact us section of our website for all reporting options.

 

Please be advised that this communication and associated communications
may be protected by legal professional privilege or litigation privilege
and as such should not be disclosed to any other person without reference
to Evolve Legal Services and the recipient.

 

 

References

Visible links
1. https://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/foi-a...
2. mailto:[email address]
4. mailto:[email address]
5. https://www.cleveland.police.uk/contact-...

Gadawodd D. Moore anodiad ()

ICO contacted.

Gadawodd D. Moore anodiad ()

'Your complaint has been accepted as eligible for further consideration and will be allocated to a case officer as soon as possible.

Cases are currently being allocated in around four-six months.'

Gadawodd D. Moore anodiad ()

I have contacted the City of London Police regarding fraud reports passed to police forces:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/f...

Gadawodd D. Moore anodiad ()

'Further to our letter of 8 June 2021, I write to inform you that your case has now been allocated to me to investigate.
...
In any event, it must provide us with its full and final arguments in support of its position. Once I receive its arguments, I will consider its reply before either contacting you to discuss the matter further or preparing a decision notice.'

Freedom of Information, Cleveland Police

4 Atodiad

Dear Mr Moore,

 

FOI Enquiry Reference: 
12702/2021                                                                                                                       

ICO Case Reference: IC-105010-Z3C1

 

I write in connection with regards to your request received in this office
on 11^th March which was subject to an Internal Review and is now subject
of an ICO complaint.  We have made additional enquiries with both the
Economic Crime Unit and the PQR Performance Team analyst and a new
response is provided below for your consideration.

 

1. For each month in the financial year 2019/20, please provide the number
of reports of fraud passed to you from the National Fraud Intelligence
Bureau (NFIB) to investigate.

2. Please provide the number of individuals charged with offences in
connection with the reports identified in Request 1.

a) The original response was based on the information provided to us by
the Economic Crime Unit, Quality Assurance & Audit Officer, Quality Team,
NCRS & Compliance and the PQR Performance Team.

a) I have made further enquiries with regards to this request and the
answer below is further explanation in relation to our decision obtained
from the Detective Inspector Economic Crime Unit and Cyber Crime who has a
more detailed insight into Fraud crimes.

 

Our  understanding of this FOI request is that you wish to know how many
crimes were passed to Cleveland Police from the NFIB to investigate for a
given time period (2019/20), and then to establish which of those crimes
resulted in a person or persons being charged.

 

Firstly, fraud crimes are unique in that the crime is recorded by the City
of London Police – we do not record crimes of fraud in force. Even when
the crime is transferred to us for investigation, the “crime report”
remains with the City of London Police.

 

We may receive a report direct from a member of the public, which is known
as a “call for service”. We would record this on niche and also on Action
Fraud – effectively transferring the crime to the City of London Police.
My understanding is that we cannot differentiate between calls for service
and those that we are allocated by action fraud.

 

All crimes of fraud are investigated, even though the level of
investigation may vary from the telephone call (to Cleveland Police or
Action Fraud) to a full blown investigation that may take several years.

 

Crimes allocated to this force from NFIB are recorded on niche and
allocated to an officer to investigate similarly calls for service are
recorded and allocated in the same way.

It follows that if we cannot readily identify the crimes that are passed
to us, then we cannot identify which ones of those result in a person
being charged.

All crimes are recorded at the City of London Police and they would be
better placed to answer this aspect of the FOI request.

Without the CMSB keeping a master list of those crimes allocated to us,
the only way to potentially identify these is to manually retrieve and
read through every fraud crime, so may be recorded as theft and are fraud
and some may be recorded as fraud and are actually theft (there are over
60 crime types recorded on niche), identifying the source of the crime and
then identifying the outcome.

 

The only option is to provide the details of all frauds recorded in that
financial year regardless of the source and then provide the number of
those that resulted in a person charged. However this does not exactly
meet the criteria set.

Following a search using [1]https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/data we were
able to identify the below data in relation to Cleveland Police for the
financial year 2019/20

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Force / |Referred |Total |Total Judicial |NFA / |
|Agency |Crimes |Outcomes |Outcomes |Non-judicial |
| | | | |outcomes |
|-----------+-------------+-------------+----------------+---------------|
|Cleveland |267 |141 |19 |122 |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+

 

 

Following additional enquiries with the performance team analyst and they
have been able to identify the information in the attached excel document
in answer to the original questions but we have not been able to
differentiate between calls for service and those that we are allocated by
action fraud/NFIB.

Please see attached document

 

The Cleveland Police response to your request is unique and it should be
noted that Police Forces do not use generic systems or identical
procedures to capture and record data therefore responses from Cleveland
Police should not be used as a comparison with any other force response
you receive.

 

If you have any further questions regarding this response please do not
hesitate to contact this office however I must advise that Ms Scott has
requested that any comments or questions to should be sent to her or at
least copied to her,  given that the case is under investigation.

 

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Ms E McGuigan

Freedom of Information Decision Maker

Directorate of Standards and Ethics

Cleveland Community Safety Hub | 1 Cliffland Way | Hemlington | TS8 9GL
E-mail: [2][email address]

 

[3]Website | [4]Facebook | [5]Twitter | [6]Instagram | [7]LinkedIn

 

[8]cid:image003.png@01D4A2BA.16CFF050

       

Public Service | Transparency | Impartiality | Integrity

 

“Delivering outstanding policing for our communities”

 

 

Please do not use social media or email to report crime as we do not
monitor these accounts 24/7. Dial 999 in an emergency or visit the
[9]contact us section of our website for all reporting options.

 

[10]cid:image006.png@01D4B4CC.DF865D80

 

[11]cid:image007.jpg@01D4B4CC.DF865D80

 

References

Visible links
1. https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/data
2. mailto:[email address]
3. https://www.cleveland.police.uk/
4. https://www.facebook.com/clevelandpolice/
5. https://twitter.com/ClevelandPolice
6. https://www.instagram.com/clevelandpolic...
7. https://www.linkedin.com/company/clevela...
9. https://www.cleveland.police.uk/contact-...

Gadawodd D. Moore anodiad ()

Grand total 364

34 charged

22 summonsed/ postal requisition

Gadawodd J Roberts anodiad ()

'Nature of fraud and computer misuse in England and Wales: year ending March 2022'

https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/natureof...

'Fraud offences reported to the police are recorded and collected by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) from Action Fraud and two industry bodies, Cifas and UK Finance (See Section 9, Measuring the data). NFIB fraud increased by 17% (to 936,276 offences) in the year ending March 2022 compared with the year ending March 2021; this is also 25% higher compared with the year ending March 2020. Although total fraud offences referred to the NFIB increased, those referred by Action Fraud decreased.'