How long have you been in the Private Investigation Industry? I have been an investigator for over 40 years now. I was a detective at Scotland Yard for 16 years before transferring to the National Crime Squad where I conducted Investigations all over the world, working with many International Law Enforcement Agencies in the process.
After retiring from Law Enforcement in 2009, I worked in both a Retail and an Investment Bank, in various financial crime investigation roles and this really helped, seeing frauds operate from both sides of the fence. I set my own Fraud and Corruption Agency (Fedora) up in early 2019 and have been amazed at just how many investigations are out there that don’t get reported immediately or ever to the police. That was really an eye opener.
What made you get in to this line of work? From my first days in the police at the age of 18, I knew that I wanted to be a detective. The pride detectives put into their paperwork and the painstaking amount of work that was required to get to the finish line astounded me. For me the real police work starts after all of the excitement of the arrest has subsided. However, it always frustrated me, that the police as an institution were too fond of putting crimes and the police officers who investigate them into boxes.
I am afraid organised crime doesn’t work that way, it cuts across all areas of criminal activity. Organised fraud, usually involves some form of corruption and importantly is committed across numerous jurisdictions and involving a number of crime areas such as; cyber activity and money laundering. As a result, investigators need to be knowledgeable and proficient in all of these areas to take the crimes on otherwise the investigation that will follow will be too narrow and only progress within the comfort zone of the person investigating. Many times the investigator just doesn’t know where to start and so cases get left in the tray. Training is the key and that costs money.
In a crime survey for England and Wales there was an estimated 3,863,000 fraud offences against adults in England and Wales year ending 2019. What is the best way to protect ourselves? Unfortunately, individual greed and/or naivety lies at the root of many frauds that are perpetrated. The old adage that if somethings is too good to be true it probably isn’t, is so true yet so many members of the public don’t take heed and never think they will be scammed. However, nobody is safe from fraud and fraudulent approaches, all the fraudster needs is the key to open your door. Often this key can be obtained through cyber activity and it is more subtle than you would imagine.
The fraudsters gain most of the information they need through phishing activity. Lots of people think they know what ’phishing is’ but if that was true why do so many fall for the scams?
The first stage of the attack is often through the random use of spamming. The cyber-crime world is a flat structure. Spammers are not fraudsters they do their thing and then sell on the product to others on the net. Millions of emails sent out to millions of people. The messages usually carry no threat, no malicious payload such as a virus or trojan, they just want to identify whether your email address is ‘live’ and that you are a potential ‘clicker’, someone who clicks on anything without too much thought. Great, you clicked, you’re on the list.
Once they have been identified your email address as ‘live’ the information will go on to a list that will be shared amongst internet spammers, hackers and fraudsters via password protected websites owned by cyber criminals. They are ready to take things to the next step.
Some cyber criminals will send out emails to your email address which contain malicious code hidden in a link or word document. These virus’ are designed to spider their way onto your machine in order to steal information or turn your machine into a zombie to be used in other cyber-attacks. Others will start to do some homework, some research and try to link your email address to social media activity. LinkedIn is very useful to cyber criminals. They want to see what makes you tick and most importantly what might make you click on a link. Once they have found the key, possibly a hobby or an interest of yours, you will be ready to be ‘spear phished’.
A spear phishing email is an email designed especially for you. It might purport to be from someone you know or about an interest you like. It might be a friend who is organising that golf trip later in the year or it might be an invitation to a special event with your idol. Whatever the email looks like it will be designed to make you click on that link or open up that word document. When you do, the fraud or malicious activity will execute and you will be hooked. In short you are just about to be defrauded. You are just about to send lots of hard earned money to the wrong account, a ‘mule account’.
What should people be looking out for? So, what do you do about it. Well, slow down and think! Does life really work that way? Why should you get that special email? What the hurry? Why the secrecy?
Fraudsters always want you to rush and its always a big secret! A deal that no one else knows about. Emails that urge to you do something urgently and secretly should be ‘red alerts’ to you.
Next, DON’T click on anything until you are sure who the email is from. Take a look at the email address of the sender and once you have taken a look, have three more looks. It might not actually say what you think it says.
Tiny changes to a name, changing the name ‘tommy’ to tomny’ is all that is needed. As a belt and braces, hover your cursor over the email address and see if the email actually resolves to a completely different email address. This is where any reply is really going to.
Lastly, if you are told by anyone that your account and money have been compromised and you need to place your life savings into a safe account DON’T DO IT.
Again, life doesn’t work like that and nor do banks or the police. Seek advice but don’t send that money. If you are reading this and are thinking I would never do that, I beg to differ. On a day when you are all over the place, rushing around and just not thinking straight, that email or phone call will catch you. On the end of that phone or email will be a fraudster so polished and convincing you will do whatever they say. When that day happens, remember this article and stop and think! Take a moment and remember, life doesn’t work this way.
What should the government be doing to prevent this? I don’t want to criticise the police as it is in my blood however, things have got disturbingly bad.
There just aren’t enough resources and nowhere near the right amount of training to cope with the onslaught of fraud activity that hits the UK. For this to happen there needs to be a sea change in the Government’s response and put fraud higher up the agenda.
Fraud isn’t committed by fraudsters and they don’t fit in a box called fraud. They are organised criminals and the money that is made from such activity is used to commit more crime and this includes terrorism.
It is interesting to note that the UK is targeted more than any other country on earth by fraudsters, because of our unique character.
We are in the main, very polite and trusting, especially of people we believe to be professionals, such as solicitors. Even the word commands respect for the typical Brit. All that a fraudster needs to do is raise his or her inclination and tone on the phone when you are hesitating, saying something like, “Don’t you trust me?” and the UK caller will back down and become totally subservient. I have listened to literally thousands of phone calls where it happens just like this.
We just don’t like saying no and we certainly don’t like slamming the phone down. However, on the end of that phone is a master at deception. Possibly with ‘call centre’ experience, they have a silky charm, are very used to talking to members of the public, sound like they know what they are talking about and are very, very persistent.
Take a deep breath and say No. Give yourself time, don’t be rushed or bullied. Put that phone down and DON’T apologise when you do it!
