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Fraud and cyber crime national statistics

On this page you can find the latest fraud and cyber crime statistics, including key trends, performance indicators, reports, referrals and outcomes.

Action Fraud Interactive Dashboard

Key statistics on the fraud and cyber crimes reported to Action Fraud are now available in a configurable, interactive dashboard through clicking this link.

These dashboards have been designed to allow users to quickly identify the most commonly reported fraud and cyber crimes, and filter by police forces in the UK where the reporting victim resides. They also allow users to look in a little more detail at the types of victims reporting, the way they report, and the estimated overall losses based on reporting figures.

Using the filters on the left hand side of the screen, users are able to apply filters to the charts and graphs in the body of the dashboard, including looking at specific reporting periods. The data is updated each month and currently covers a 13 month period so the current month can be compared to the same month last year. Don’t forget to look at the last tab “About the Data” which should answer some key questions on what the data means, and any limitations.

Fraud and Cyber Crime Trends

Please see the below links for an overview of our most recently published fraud and cyber crime trends. This includes reporting volumes, the top three fraud types, losses and geographical spread.

Fraud crime trends 2020 - 21

Cyber crime trends 2020 - 21

Fraud crime trends 2019 - 20

Cyber crime trends 2019 - 20

Reports, referrals and outcomes

We've published reports, referrals and outcomes for fraud and cyber crime broken down by Home Office police forces and other agencies in the UK for 1 April 2019 - 31 March 2020.

Police forces

Force / Agency

Referred Crimes

Total Outcomes

Total Judicial Outcomes

NFA / Non-judicial outcomes

Avon and Somerset

531

654

106

548

Bedfordshire

409

618

43

575

Cambridgeshire

273

972

70

902

Cheshire

401

255

65

190

City of London *

862

1,485

500

985

Cleveland

267

141

19

122

Cumbria

165

768

154

614

Derbyshire

277

855

127

728

Devon and Cornwall

694

1,136

105

1,031

Dorset

326

1,181

321

860

Durham

95

259

116

143

Dyfed/Powys

91

534

59

475

Essex

1,484

1,453

156

1,297

Gloucestershire

154

213

21

192

Greater Manchester

1,993

443

140

303

Gwent

195

437

78

359

Hampshire

599

1,089

181

908

Hertfordshire

446

1,363

210

1,153

Humberside

404

423

97

326

Kent

847

1,295

145

1,150

Lancashire

580

600

59

541

Leicestershire

1,631

431

95

336

Lincolnshire

335

1,245

169

1,076

Merseyside

514

1,014

64

950

Metropolitan

13,492

4,823

709

4,114

Norfolk

234

779

110

669

North Wales

285

1,193

121

1,072

North Yorkshire

164

53

6

47

Northamptonshire

544

1,274

155

1,119

Northumbria

378

349

93

256

Nottinghamshire

520

2,909

263

2,646

Police Service of Northern Ireland

227

1,060

140

920

South Wales

317

1,687

183

1,504

South Yorkshire

518

1,348

173

1,175

Staffordshire

304

960

137

823

Suffolk

258

536

40

496

Surrey

623

2,230

132

2,098

Sussex

755

3,406

127

3,279

Thames Valley

1,177

1,345

234

1,111

Warwickshire

209

570

53

517

West Mercia

408

1,319

121

1,198

West Midlands

2,439

2,653

234

2,419

West Yorkshire

1,221

1,054

107

947

Wiltshire

305

543

125

418

Police Forces England, Wales & Northern Ireland - Excluding Partner Agencies

37,951

48,955

6,363

42,592

 

Other Forces, Regional and National Units

Referred Crimes Total Outcomes Total Judicial Outcomes NFA / Non-judicial outcomes

British Transport Police

5

93

14

79

Regional OCU's

2,867

     

Guernsey

3

     

Isle of Man

8

     

Jersey

5

     

Police Scotland

355

     

 

Partner agencies

 

Partner Agencies

Referred Crimes Total Outcomes Total Judicial Outcomes NFA / Non Judicial Outcomes

Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)

1,090

     

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs

43

     

Insolvency Service

303

     

National Crime Agency

780

     

Other

1,220

     

Serious Fraud Office

44

     

Trading Standards

431

     

Total Partner Agencies

 

0

0

0

 

Terms used in the data

  • National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) is part of the City of London Police. It analyses information and crimes reported to Action Fraud to develop lines of inquiry and then sends out crime packages (disseminations) to police forces and other law enforcement agencies. NFIB also carries out a range of activities to disrupt websites, bank accounts and telephone accounts used to enable fraud and provides crime prevention advice to the public, industry and other partners.
  • There are a number of different types of judicial outcome as defined by the Home Office (see Section H).

How we choose which crimes are sent to forces

Several factors are considered when a dissemination is made. This includes whether or not there are viable lines of enquiry and the threat, risk and harm to the victim. Crimes are disseminated to police forces for investigation primarily based on the location of the suspect, where there are viable lines of enquiry to be made and when officers have the best opportunity to detect and deter. However, all reports are stored for further analysis so that if new information is discovered it can be used as part of any future investigation.

Discrepancies in outcomes between forces

Fraud and cyber crime are complex crimes that take time to investigate and, where possible, prosecute. It can also happen from outside the UK, which adds a further degree of complexity in trying to track down offenders.

There is not a direct link between the number of crime disseminations and the number of outcomes returned. Disseminations and disposals often won't occur in the same reporting period due to the length of time required for fraud investigations. It's also possible for the number of outcomes to be greater than disseminations, when disseminations made before April 2019 are returned as outcomes within the 2019/20 period.

Police forces are mandated to provide outcome data, but other agencies are not subject to Home Office Counting Rules and therefore do not report outcomes to the City of London Police.

Discrepancies between data and HO outcome data

This data is provisional management information subject to revision. It is based on the date received, rather than recorded.