NFIB eNewsletter - November 2009

Message from Detective Chief Superintendent Steve Head, Head of Economic Crime, City of London Police

I would like to welcome you to the first NFIB eNewsletter. At the City of London Police we are proud to be delivering a law enforcement initiative of such national significance and are excited at what it will contribute to the fight against fraud.  For too long fraudsters have been able to go undetected as they commit their crimes against different people, in different places and in different ways. No more.

The NFIB, working in unison with the NFRC, will tighten the net around those who bring misery to people’s lives.  This will not happen overnight. But each month will generate more reports of fraud, which in turn will give the NFIB greater means to provide police forces with the tools they need to bring fraudsters to justice.

However, none of this can be effectively achieved without the ongoing support of our stakeholders. This eNewsletter is designed to fully inform you about the ongoing development of the NFIB. I also hope it will keep you as enthused as I am about just what it can achieve.

November update

 The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau is alive and kicking at the City of London Police, providing police forces across the UK with fraud intelligence for possible investigation. The technical infrastructure and applications for the main NFIB hub, based in Gloucester, have also been completed and bulk fraud data is now being ingested into the systems.

Since the National Fraud Reporting Centre went live on October 26th the NFIB has received 147 reports (as of Nov 17) from the NFRC call centre, 62 of which have been classifed as criminal reports. Most prevalent are cheque and credit card fraud, online fraud and advanced fee frauds. Each morning data is being securely transferred to the NFRC Receiving Desk, based at the Economic Crime Directorate (ECD), for analysis and assessment. Reports deemed to be criminal are then measured against set criteria by the NFIB team. Those that score highly enough and provide viable leads are referred to the police force where the fraudulent activity is focused.

The majority of fraud reports to date have come from the West Midlands, where the NFRC pilot is being hosted. In turn, this has led to the West Midlands Police receiving the majority of NFIB crime reports. However, with fraud reports also emanating from other regions a range of police forces have been sent crime reports. These include West Yorkshire, MPS, Strathclyde, Lancashire and GMP. NFRC data has also been used to produce fraud intelligence reports for the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Running parallel to these activities at ECD has been the creation of the NFIB i2 database. Officers have merged fraud data from Operation Halo, Operation Archway, Operation Prime, CoLP intel and the NFRC Contact Centre to create a single hub. This is the first time the City of London Police has consolidated all of its fraud data and will allow officers to easily cross reference case details and spot trends in offending.

The Technical Application Development (TAD) started in Gloucester at the end of October, following the completion of the technical infrastructure by SERCO. Since then Detica has finished building its applications and bulk fraud data from CIFAS, OFT-CD, Phonepay Plus, Land Registry, ACPO AVCIS, Companies House and Vodafone is now being ingested into the NFIB hub. 

Discussions continue with some data providers to finalise data sharing agreements and the legal agreements. A second ingest is anticipated towards the end of November once these issues are resolved and additional datasets received. The secure electronic file transfer option for data between data providers and Gloucester continues to be worked on

Two police analysts are expected to join the project in December and additional temporary staff is being recruited to support the NFIB roll-out. Further staff is being recruited.

Superintendent David Clarke, who is the NFIB Project Director, said:

"I am enormously grateful for the support we continue to receive from our partners, especially CIFAS, UK Payments, OFT, SOCA and RBS, who are supplying their fraud bulk data to us and seconding staff to our team.

It has taken four years for the NFIB to get to this point. However, this is actually just the beginning - the operational work starts now."

 What happens next?

• Receive signed Information Sharing Agreement for outstanding Data Providers

• Receive outstanding data from the data providers for the second ingest
• Ongoing work on the TAD in Gloucester
• Data quality assurance will be completed
• Agree data transfer protocol with NFRC Contact Centre
• New analysts continue to join the team

Meet the Team

Name and job title:

Damian Angelis: Data Analyst

Where have you come from?

Prior to the NFIB, worked for the Scottish Executive, the Home Office and most recently, RBS.

So what do you do?

Support the NFIB in delivering the TAD phase of the project, keep partner organisations updated and, following completion of the TAD, engage potential suppliers of fraud data.  Work with Detica to match and assess confirmed fraud data from each provider and establish fraud links and trends.

NFIB - the good and bad?

The project team has a wide range of experience and specialist knowledge. Travelling to Gloucester from London for an early start.

When not at your desk you like to?

Head off to Europe for short breaks