One £30m case pushes region’s fraud levels off the charts
FRAUD in the Yorkshire region has increased 174%, due to one major case which skewed results for the whole county.
According to KPMG’s Fraud Barometer, which measures cases of a value of more than £100,000, Yorkshire fraud has leaped £26m.
The total value between January and June 2015 in the region reached £41m.
The £30m case which skewed the results involved a £30m alleged fraud filed at York Crown Court.
The scam involved websites designed to look like official government sites which were then used to deceive people into paying for free services.
Three people, Collette Maria Ferrow, Claire Michael Hall and Peter Anthony Hall, built sites that offered new passports, visas, European health insurance cards and driving licenses.
Excluding this exceptional case, there would be a drop of £4m, over 19 cases rather than 18 as was recorded last year.
Other cases included a land development fraud costing £450,000, tax evasion from 3 million cigarettes which were smuggled through, coming to a value at £665,000.
Vivien Hopkins, director, KPMG Forensic in Yorkshire, said: “Overall, the picture painted by the Yorkshire cases in our current Fraud Barometer is one of a series of significant but sub £1m frauds, largely perpetrated by male professional criminals or management figures. Individuals who have put themselves in a position to benefit from the deliberate syphoning of money from their organisation, clients or victims, have done so to the tune of £600,000 on average before being caught out.
It’s a real warning for anyone who allows others to handle their money, to make robust checks on who they are dealing with, and for business owners to maintain controls and scrutiny over those in a position to redirect funds out of the company.”
