NFIB eNewsletter - April 2010

 

Message from Detective Superintendent David Clarke, Head of the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau

Dear Stakeholder

Welcome to the third NFIB eNewsletter.

The last few weeks has seen the achievement of some significant milestones. In March the NFIB presented the first Overseas Corruption Intelligence assessment to the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, and at the end of the month ACPO Cabinet agreed the proposed Fraud Doctrine and Standard Operating Procedures (SOP). These documents will give Chief Officers a full understanding of their commitment to the NFIB and the impact it will have on their respective crime business areas.

Police forces are getting a taste of how they can benefit from the NFIB. We recently provided assistance to a Tayside Police fraud investigation, leading to the arrest of several suspected fraudsters. The NFIB team in Gloucester have also hosted representatives from a number of forces and data providers, showing them what is now one of the most advanced intelligence systems in the world. We look forward to welcoming many more guests to our offices in the near future. 

Another positive step has been the formation of the NFIB 'Financial Crime against Vulnerable Adults' team, consisting of an analyst, researcher, DS from Cumbria public protection unit, a social worker and a financial investigator. Following on from this, a national campaign will be launched to raise awareness and increase the volume of crime and intelligence reports focusing on offences against vulnerable adults. Supporters include the Department of Health, Home Office, Moneymadeclear, NFA, Mind and Age Concern.

Led by my deputy, Detective Chief Inspector Richard Waight, recruitment of another 20 staff means we are closer to having the necessary capability and capacity to deliver quality fraud intelligence and crime information. At the NFIB it really is a case of the bigger the team the greater the impact.

NFIB update:

Strong foundations

The agreement from ACPO Cabinet to the Fraud Doctrine and SOPs highlighted above, together with the changes to the Home Office Counting Rules (HOCR), means the foundation is now strong for the national roll out of Action Fraud and the NFIB functions. These documents ensure all existing policing standards are followed and these new services enhance rather than hinder the drive towards Citizen Focus policing and the delivery of the Policing Pledge and Victims Code. The Fraud Doctrine and SOP are now being sent to the nominated fraud SPOC for each force.

The SOP details the crime and intelligence products the NFIB produces. These include:

1. Crime Reports emanating from Action Fraud. These will have been subject to a level of assessment and meet the agreed ACPO criteria for dissemination. These will have undergone some analysis and may be linked to other intelligence such as a network.

2. Subject profiles and problem profiles - these will incorporate detailed, analysed and charted information (i2 compatible).

The NFIB had received 800 fraud reports from Action Fraud by the end of March. More than 150 crime reports have been referred to police forces across the UK. For a crime to be referred to a police force, the following criteria must apply:

• It is a known fraud or attempted fraud (not purely intelligence) per the new counting rules
• There is a reasonable chance of a suspect being brought to justice
• There are viable leads within the force’s jurisdiction
• The 'Know Fraud' hub

Whilst the NFIB’s ‘Know Fraud’ analytical system is in build phase, the test system at Gloucester (that contains the bulk fraud data from industry partners) has been used to develop three intelligence packages to support operations by GMP, Tayside Police and OFT Scambusters. The project team are now coding the procedures developed during the technical analytical development (TAD) phase for inputting data and prioritising and scoring identified criminal networks. Once operational the technical systems will prioritise networks/reports for the NFIB analysis team.

For information to be processed through the NFIB hub it must comply with the legal agreement for sharing data with the NFIB. The ingested data feed is then assessed against a set of specific criteria.

These criteria include:

• frequency of crime
• acceleration of crime
• capacity to commit crime
• links to organised crime groups
• number of people affected by the crime
• spread of the crime
• financial loss due to the crime
• Initial testing started in April with more detailed user checks following in June.

With the IT system moving towards a 'go live' date in June, fraud data is being manually transferred from data providers to the NFIB, but tests are being carried out on a Secure Electronic File Transfer (SEFT) that will encrypt and send the data directly from the provider’s system to the hub. The SEFT is due to be implemented in May.  Work also continues with data providers to ensure the format of individual data feeds is structured to match the NFIB system specification.

Most police intelligence teams around the UK use i2 systems for criminal analysis and so a solution is being developed to enable the dissemination of intelligence through this, ready for immediate review and further work. Analysts from other forces/agencies are working with us to determine how this product will look. 

Action Fraud

The Action Fraud web-reporting tool went live on 25th March 2010 with an automated data feed to the NFIB following shortly after. This new XML format feed coming from both the contact centre and the web reporting tool will mean an improvement in the quality of fraud data being sent to the NFIB. Following feedback from forces, a new extract is being designed for Action Fraud referrals to police forces that are not part of an existing network.

Of the 800 plus reports of fraud from Action Fraud (an increase of almost 500 since the end of January). The most common offences have been in online shopping fraud, advanced fee fraud and boiler room fraud. The surge in reports is due to Action Fraud being rolled out across several more regions and the recent media interest in multiple fraud reports alleging the same crime.  To date 150-plus crime reports have been disseminated and sent to 23 forces. Police services in Avon and Somerset, Dorset, Gwent, Hertfordshire, North Yorkshire, Northumbria, Nottinghamshire, Northern Ireland, Suffolk, Warwickshire, West Mercia and South Wales have recently received their first crime reports

Although the Action Fraud services and NFIB are live we are not yet in a position where we can consider diverting police reported 'fraud' to these services. Therefore at this time they are solely for the members of the public who choose to contact Action Fraud rather than report their crime directly to their local police. As such no changes to existing force processes should be made until specifically requested via direct communication with forces' Chief Officers. Until then the reporting of fraud should be dealt with in the same way as all other crimes.

New website to go live

The NFIB website is being developed by the City of London Police communication team and will soon go live. This will give the public, commerce, our industry partners and law enforcement colleagues access to a wealth of economic crime related information. It will also alert people to new trends, provide fraud prevention advice and easy navigation for those wishing to a report fraud.

Providers see what the NFIB is doing with their data

Following a meeting on 19th March 2010 data providers were invited to the NFIB’s office in Gloucester to see the system in action. Representatives from British Transport Police, the NHS, Dun and Bradstreet, CIFAS and OFT were able to view their data in the system and speak with analysts about how they are contributing to the NFIB. Attendees were impressed by what they saw and offered further assistance to the project. The NFIB team are very interested to hear your thoughts on how they could get your feedback on the products they will be providing.

If you are interested in visiting the NFIB hub in Gloucester, finding out more about how you can join the project on a secondment, or have any further questions about the NFIB please contact DCI Waight on 020 7601 6916 or at Richard.waight@cityoflondon.police.uk.

If you would like more information for your organisation please contact Harry Watkinson at the City of London Police press office on 0207 6012015 or on harry.watkinson@cityoflondon.police.uk.

What happens next?

• Agree i2 export specification.
• Implementation of Secure Electronic File Transfer for data provider ingests
• Staff recruitment
• Completion of the full privacy impact assessment for the NFIB
• Obtain accreditation for the 'Know Fraud' system

Meet the team

Name and job title:  

Karen Woodfield, Intelligence Analyst

Where have you come from?

I spent seven years with London Underground as an Office Manager, followed by two years working as a healthcare assistant at Broadmoor Hospital to gain experience to complete my MSc Forensic Psychology.

So what do you do?

I am one of of five staff involved in the day to day running of Operation Archway, which is the national intelligence bureau for boiler room fraud. As a team we liaise with many different agencies working in the detection, disruption and prevention of boiler room fraud. We also disseminate packages to law enforcement agencies, including the City of London Police, for investigation.

When not at your desk you like to:

At the moment I sleep. When no longer pregnant I shall hopefully be back to sailing, skiing and mountain biking, though people keep telling me I am going to be rather busy!