Consumers are increasingly being targeted by financial fraudsters who deceive them into sending money, access their bank accounts or take out loans using their identity. Over the summer, new and more sophisticated scams have been widespread. Behind these frauds – things like phishing emails and scam calls – are a variety of schemes designed to trap people from any section of society.

In England and Wales, there was a 33% increase in the number of people falling victim to fraud in 2024, meaning it now accounts for 40% of all crime against individuals. According to one study, looking at the scale of the problem internationally, 31% of all adults in the US were targeted by fraudsters between 2021 and 2023. This figure was just 8% for Japan.

Much of this fraud is cross-border, so much so that the UK Home Office estimated in 2023 that 70% of fraud has an international element. And while some fraud schemes involve only lone fraudsters, the spectrum runs right through to sophisticated organised crime groups. In some of the most disturbing cases in east Asia, scam compounds have evolved, filled with tens of thousands of people forced to carry out scams – generating billions of dollars for the crime gangs.

---

Read more:
Scam Factories: the inside story of Southeast Asia’s brutal fraud compounds

---

This cross-border nature of most fraud poses immense challenges for police. There are substantial barriers to conducting international investigations and securing extraditions. The truth is that most active fraudsters based in different countries to their victims have few worries about being caught and punished, or even of having their criminal activities interrupted.

Indeed, there is very little evidence of extradition in western countries. So what can be done about this cruel, complex and costly problem?

The UK government has taken a leading role against cross-border fraud, introducing several initiatives in its counter-fraud strategy. However, most of the action points are defensive – focused on protecting potential victims and tightening the systems fraudsters exploit, such as banks, tech firms and telecoms.

On the offensive

Campaigns centred on fraud awareness, as well as making banks invest in prevention and getting internet companies to take down fraudulent adverts, are all important measures that should form the basis of any strategy. But offensive measures targeted at fraudsters have been under-used so far.

Our own research has highlighted several ways to take more offensive actions against fraudsters. Disruption efforts such as taking down scam websites, fake profiles and using bots are already being carried out by private companies, nongovernmental organisations and the private anti-scam community (Pasc). This group includes “scambaiters” (people who pretend to be taken in by the fraud in order to keep the criminals occupied) and volunteers working against scammers.

Some tactics are widely accepted – things like talking to fraudsters to waste their time, taking down fraudulent websites and using bots to communicate with criminals. However, other disruption methods are more controversial as they often break the law. These include placing malware on scammers’ computers, using “call-flooders” to disable scam phone numbers, hacking scammers to destroy files and intervening to warn victims.

Some groups also expose known scammers by informing their associates, friends and family of what they are doing. Alternatively, they report them to internet service providers and regulators. But publicly outing scammers runs the risk of serious harm to the criminal outside the formal justice system. Worse, it has the potential for mistaken identity and innocent people being vilified or even harmed.

The Pasc community is larger than any one country or global body’s anti-fraud police infrastructure. Retail giant Amazon alone has 15,000 people in its global anti-fraud community. As well as engaging in disruption, it also possesses huge amounts of data.

For any kind of global anti-fraud strategy to work, governments must embrace this community. In this way, they could work together to share data and strategies to target scammers efficiently and effectively.

Much more offensive disruption is needed, but it needs to be done with proper legal and ethical safeguards and in a coordinated way. This means working with existing or new international structures.

And police based in the victims’ countries should work more closely with the nations that are home to large numbers of cross-border scammers.

Sanctions too are a big part of the solution. While actions such as freezing assets and travel bans have been used against individuals and groups (as well as governments) to target things like corruption, money-laundering and people-trafficking, they have not been used in the counter-fraud area. These measures could easily be used against known scammers.

Fraud prevalence looks set to continue to grow globally. Increasing investment in prevention is welcome, but it is only part of the solution. Both public and private groups must renew their focus on offensive measures to target the fraudsters themselves. Sanctions should be central to a suite of strategies to disrupt the scammers, slashing the profits of their criminal enterprises.