Brits lose 14 bln pounds to fraud annually

Detective Chief Superintendent Ken Farrow, head of the City of London Police Fraud Squad and chairman of the ACPO National Working Group on Fraud estimates fraud accounts for losses of 14 bln pounds to the UK economy annually. In 2003, credit card fraud losses alone were over 402 mln pounds, as a result of theft, counterfeiting and other types of card crime. A substantial proportion of those losses, some 29.7 mln pounds, were incurred because the cardholders' identities and other personal data were copied from the cards themselves or from documentation carelessly discarded.