With the Paradise Papers hitting headlines and highlighting potential tax avoidance schemes this article seems to have been buried under the sand. Fraudulent activity costs the UK £190m annually. It is of course still rising as new types of white collar crimes catch up on the statistical tick box.
Technology continues to control more and more money making this the paradise heaven for fraudsters.
“The 2017 Annual Fraud Indicator highlights again the colossal cost of fraud to the UK economy,” said professor Mark Button, director of the University of Portsmouth’s Centre for Counter Fraud Studies. “At £190bn it would represent more than the UK government spends on health and defence combined, or on all welfare payments, bar pensions.” Earlier this year, a survey by the Office of National Statistics found that fraud was the most common crime in England and Wales. This revelation came after cybercrime and fraud were included in the Crime Survey for England Wales for the first time.
http://economia.icaew.com/en/news/november-2017/uk-loses-190bn-due-to-fraud