New Fraud Strategy is 'a significant step forward'
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The Pension Scams Action Group has welcomed the government's anti-fraud unit announced on Monday, which aims to disrupt global crime networks through increased information sharing.
The new Online Crime Centre, with £30m in funding, is part of the government’s Fraud Strategy 2026-29 and will start operating next month. It will bring together government, police, intelligence agencies, banks, mobile networks and tech firms to identify fraudulent accounts, websites and phone numbers used by organised crime groups and shut them down “at scale”.
The Home Office plans to invest £250m in fraud prevention over the next three years. The Centre will join up with the National Police Service in future as the police will take over responsibility for fighting fraud.
Gaucho Rasmussen, executive director of the enforcement and legal group at the Pensions Regulator, which leads the Pension Scams Action Group, commented on the new strategy saying that tackling fraud requires “strong, coordinated action”.
“We welcome the government’s fraud strategy as a significant step forward, which recognises the need for robust inter-agency collaboration to stop scammers in their tracks and protect savers’ money,” he said.
Fraud minister Lord Hanson said: “Fraudsters are exploiting new technology, industrialising their operations and targeting the British public at scale. That’s why we’re bringing together the key players in the system – police, intelligence agencies, banks, mobile networks, regulators and tech companies – to shut down the channels scammers rely on, wherever they operate from. Our new Fraud Strategy sets out how we will use every tool at our disposal to disrupt and dismantle criminal operations, bring fraudsters to justice and strengthen protection and support for victims.”
The strategy includes better support for victims. A new fraud Victims Charter will set out response times, minimum standards of care and consistent advice on reimbursement and recovery, while a dedicated network of police ‘PROTECT’ officers will be charged with helping those most vulnerable to fraud by ramping up “targeted support in fraud hotspots across the country”. This will include doorstep advice and installing call-blocking devices in vulnerable homes and businesses, according to Pete O’Doherty, City of London police commissioner and National Police Chiefs' council lead for cyber and economic crime.
It is estimated that one in 14 adults and one in four businesses have become a victim of fraud in the UK, costing the economy over £14bn a year.
The Home Office said more than two-thirds of scams originate from abroad, and that “the home secretary will drive global leadership in the fight against scammers at the Global Fraud Summit in Vienna next week”.
Attempts to defraud pension savers continue, despite a ban on pensions cold calling in 2019 and new trustee powers to block suspicious transfers in 2021, with impersonation using artificial intelligence posing the latest threat. The number of victims of pension scams is difficult to estimate as many only realise they have been scammed when they seek to access their pension years later.
Together with its partners, the regulator has secured compensation of more than £180m for victims of historic pension scams, which has been paid across to the affected schemes since August 2024.
TPR's recent prevention campaigns build on sharing the stories of real victims, such as the video with Pauline Padden, a children's critical care nurse, who lost her entire £45,000 pension savings to fraudsters, and a storyline in popular TV series Eastenders.
Trustees can join TPR’s Pledge to Combat Pension Scams. About 600 pension schemes and organisations have so far committed to adopting higher standards of scams prevention through the pledge.
The government’s new Online Crime Centre and Fraud Strategy come after the Pensions Ombudsman’s Dishonesty Unit had to be dismantled last year due to funding cuts.
TPO is taking a harder line in recent pension liberation decisions, saying that trustees had no legal duty to undertake due diligence on transfers out between 2013 and 2021.
