§ Mr. Stephen O'BrienTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the cost to British financial institutions in the last two years from(a) stolen corporate identities and (b) hoax e-mails. [102001]
§ Mr. Bob AinsworthI have been asked to reply.
While there have been incidents of corporate identity fraud in the UK in the last two years which have been investigated by UK law enforcement agencies, these cases have not resulted in any reported loss to the financial institutions concerned. With regards to incidences of hoax e-mails, more commonly known as advance fee or '419' fraud, once again there has been no reported financial loss to UK financial institutions. Losses have been sustained by a number of individual victims of such crime and in the years 2001 and 2002 National Criminal Intelligence Service figures detail reported losses of £19,451,000. This however is likely to be only a small percentage of losses as few victims are prepared to acknowledge their losses to Law Enforcement.