Fraud on the rise while violent crime declines

According to Police Scotland’s management information report, there were 1,955 incidents of fraud in the first quarter of 2017-18.

However, that rose to 2,584 this year.

The biggest increase appeared in East Renfrewshire, with figures trebling to 18. In Inverclyde, the figures jumped from 14 to 36.

Assistant chief constable Malcolm Graham said: “Advances in technology pose an increased vulnerability when tackling fraud and we have seen an increasing trend in online fraud and crimes involving contactless payments.

“With this form of technology, stolen cards can be monetised quickly and easily while online shopping also allows cloned cards and stolen card details to be used fraudulently.”

Crimes of fraud rose by 56 per cent in Glasgow to 495, while Edinburgh saw a 40.7 per cent increase and Fife a 53 per cent one.

East Lothian saw the number of frauds decline from 37 to 21 while in the Highlands the number fell from 137 to 81.

Mr Graham said: “We are investing in resources and equipping officers with the necessary skills to tackle this growing area of criminality.

“We are also working ever more closely with our banking colleagues. New work in this area is actively preventing fraud through the Banking Protocol, which allows us to protect those who are vulnerable to financial crime.

“Between April and June 2018, £1.05 million was prevented by Bank and Police teams protecting vulnerable, often elderly, account holders.”

As for violent crimes, domestic housebreakings are at their lowest for five years while violent crime overall has dropped 2.4 per cent, with common assaults down by 2.7 per cent and serious assaults by 5.7 per cent.

Mr Graham said: “The reduction in both common and serious assaults is to be welcomed and the success in this area is not only because of police effort and focus.”

“We have established a National Violence Prevention Board to better understand violent crime and what we can do to tackle it.

“We recognise it is a complex issue and we engage with partners across health, education, government and the licensed trade on a number of initiatives to address alcohol-related violence.”