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The government has published its national fraud strategy and confirmed the creation of the Online Crime Centre backed by £31m in funding with the remit to identify the accounts, websites and phone numbers that organised crime groups rely on, and shut them down at scale.
Long awaited, the fraud strategy sets out how the government will disrupt fraudsters and protect the public. The scale of the problem is immense with the annual cost to the economy estimated to be in the region of £14bn with more than 4m offences against individuals in the last year alone.
Backed by £250m over the next three years, the Fraud Minister, Lord Hanson said: “we will use every tool at our disposal to disrupt and dismantle criminal operations, bring fraudsters to justice and strengthen protection and support for victims.”
“The Fraud Strategy 2026 to 2029 introduces a new system-wide approach to disrupt fraudsters and ensure our response is co-ordinated, technology-driven and international, to match the threat we face. Responsibility for delivery will sit between government, regulators, law enforcement and industry.”
With the imminent launch of Police.AI, led by the National Police Chiefs’ Council, the strategy sets out how law enforcement will “deploy artificial intelligence (AI) to spot emerging fraud patterns, to stop suspicious bank transfers faster and to use scam-baiting chatbots to trick fraudsters and gather intelligence, before using it to bring them to justice.”
James Babbage, Director General (Threats) at the National Crime Agency revealed that the NCA has “worked intensively with partners to pilot a range of new approaches to fraud and cyber crime: sharing data, stopping and blocking more online crime at source, and helping to design out vulnerabilities through more resilient industry processes.”
The 93-page strategy is framed around three pillars: disrupt, safeguard and respond. The new Online Crime Centre is part of the disrupt pillar of work and will start operations in April. It will bring together specialists from the government, police, intelligence agencies, banks, mobile networks and major tech firms to drive co-ordinated action against fraud.
This builds on the launch earlier this year of Report Fraud, which is led by the City of London Police. Commissioner Pete O’Doherty, said that the data from Report Fraud will feed into the Online Crime Centre to disrupt fraud and cyber crime.
In a new episode of the Emergency Services Times podcast, Report Fraud programme director, Chris Bell emphasised stronger support for victims of fraud. As part of the announcement of the new strategy, the government said that there will be clear national standards for how every victim is treated alongside a new fraud victims charter to set out expectations about response.
Technology firms supported the launch of the strategy and the new centre. Rachel Andrews, Corporate Security and Fraud Director at VodafoneThree said that its dedicated fraud team blocked over 139 million fraudulent SMS in 2025 and continues to block around 1.7 million fraudulent calls every day. “Continuing to protect consumers and businesses requires increasing amounts of collaboration with industry, government, partners and law enforcement. This strategy marks a major milestone in that journey and we look forward to collaborating more on it.”
Murray Mackenzie, Director of Fraud Prevention at Virgin Media O2, added that the strategy is an “important step,” noting that “If we’re to tackle the UK’s fraud epidemic, the police must be given the necessary resources and funding to strike back and ensure fraud is no longer a crime without consequence.”
The Online Crime Centre will form part of the National Police Service when that it is in place.
Read in full – Fraud Strategy 2026-2029.
