Murray Mackenzie, Director of Fraud Prevention, on the importance of collaboration to tackle fraud.

At 40% of all crime,  fraud is nothing short of an epidemic.   

Day in day out, organised criminal gangs are working at industrial scale to defraud people across Britain, hellbent on stealing hard-earned money and with it, our confidence and trust.    

Increasingly digital, international and highly complex, fraud is a crime that no organisation can solve alone. It’s something we all must work together to address.   

This month, the government announced its Fraud Strategy, setting out an ambition to accelerate public and private sector collaboration to tackle this scourge. It’s a welcome step, and at Virgin Media O2 we stand ready to play our part.  

We’re fully committed to working with the newly created Online Crime Centre to provide data, insights and expertise to help the police bring fraudsters to justice. We’re already putting this approach into practice in partnership with Stop Scams UK, which brings mobile operators, banks and tech companies together to share intelligence.   

Work is taking place across our industry which is making a real difference. The Telecoms Fraud Charter has already cut scam calls and texts. Follow its success, we’ve committed to a second which will mean strengthened protections for consumers and better support for victims    

We know that criminals are not bound by state borders, and much of the crime we see originates from a complex web of networks abroad. Next week, I’ll be at the UN Fraud Summit to make the case of wider international collaboration, sharing best practices with global peers on how we can work together to fight back in their countries, helping to better protect people across Britain.      

But while businesses like Virgin Media O2 can play a strategic role in disrupting scam networks at scale, only the justice system can take them down.   

 To date, we’ve blocked more than 1 billion scam messages from reaching our customers, and we’re using cutting-edge AI technology to flag more than 70 million suspected spam and scam calls every month before customers even pick up a phone.  

These are staggering stats, but what they show is that criminals don’t simply stop because we make things harder. My team constantly make changes make to our defences: fraudsters simply find new ways to target people. They are persistent, adaptable and driven to continue this game of whack-a-mole because ultimately there are billions of pounds at stake. 

For too long the government has not given the police the necessary resources and funding to strike back and match the scale of the threat. Right now,  fraudsters operate with near impunity.   

Until criminals believe there are consequences for targeting hard-working people, fraud will remain a crime of staggering volume and depressingly low risk.  

The government’s Fraud Strategy recognises the need to strengthen its response by bolstering investigative capabilities and actively pursuing the criminals behind these offences. Now’s the time to deliver.  

With a sharpened focus, a united industry, and strong public private partnerships, we are on the right track to tackling fraud. Now government must ensure the police have the proper resources so the UK can turn ambition into action and finally bring these bad guys to justice.  

Murray Mackenzie is Director of Fraud Prevention at Virgin Media O2.