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A UK police unit that targets organised criminal gangs behind fraud prevented a record of £101m from being stolen in 2021 — the highest amount in the unit’s 20-year history.
The Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU), which is funded by the banking and finance industry, is made up of officers from the City of London Police and Metropolitan Police Service, as well as members of trade association UK Finance.
According to UK Finance, investigations by the DCPCU in 2021 led to the arrest of 123 suspected criminals and 41 disruptions against 23 organised criminal gangs. Some 83 criminals were also convicted following successful DCPCU operations.
The unit also seized more than £1.2m in assets.
“The DCPCU is working tirelessly to disrupt the organised criminal gangs behind fraud and protect the public,” said Gary Robinson, DCPCU chief. “I am immensely proud of the unit’s investigations which have prevented £101 million from going into the hands of criminals, a record amount in our 20-year history.”
He continued: “While criminals will seek out opportunities to defraud the public, our close partnerships with the banking and finance industry and other partners, including mobile phone companies and the Crown Prosecution Service, have been instrumental in bringing them to justice.”
Due to the DCPCU, several individuals were also jailed for their involvement in scams exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic.
For example, the unit saw the successful sentencing of an individual who sent out thousands of scam texts claiming to be from the NHS, which harvested people’s personal and financial details by offering a COVID-19 vaccination.
Other successful operations by the unit include the sentencing of an organised crime group to a combined total of more than eight years in prison for committing benefit fraud, and the jailing of a criminal who committed more than £940,000 of fraud through harvesting customers’ details online and via mail theft.
“The DCPCU’s impressive results are an important example of the banking and finance industry’s close collaboration with law enforcement on protecting the public from fraud,” said Katy Worobec, managing director of economic crime at UK Finance. “The unit’s work in tackling organised criminal gangs has stopped stolen money from funding other serious criminal activities, including terrorism, human trafficking and drugs smuggling.”
