Overseas criminals are committing so many online crimes that police are now struggling to solve barely one in eight fraud instances. And while 46 cases a day are reported to the force, at least double that rate goes unreported, bosses have admitted.

The stark figures were laid bare in Scottish Police Authority papers into tackling scammers, which are reported in this month’s edition of 1919 Magazine. They state that “month on month increases” mean cases are “now at their highest level” and that “it is recognised that this crime remains hugely under-reported”.

The figures show the scale of the problem, which is now the most common crime in the UK.

That includes:

• Cases have doubled since 2017 from 8,160 to 16,879.
• Police Scotland spent 400,000 hours investigating fraud in the last five years.
• Just 2,725 fraud reports were successfully detected last year.
• By March, detection rates had plummeted to 13.9 per cent.
• 95 per cent of fraud now takes place online.

A Scottish Police Authority (SPA) report from a recent meeting states: “It is clear that as more crimes are being increasingly committed online and have a digital footprint, that Police Scotland will be unable to ‘arrest their way out of this problem’.

“Greater effort will need to be applied to ensuring that we do all we can to educate and inform the public on the threats and trends that are occurring in the digital world.”

Another SPA report added: “Fraud is a significant global issue which is recognised as the most prominent crime type within the UK.
“Within Police Scotland we continue to see month on month increases in reported fraud and, coupled with limited resource locally to investigative fraud, our detection rate is falling.”

Marjorie Gibson, head of operations for national advice service Advice Direct Scotland, said: “It’s a hugely under-reported issue, so these figures are likely to just be the tip of the iceberg. Scammers are constantly seeking new opportunities, including through social media, to target Scots and acquire personal information, bank details, or money.

“This includes exploiting households hit by the cost-of-living crisis and rising bills. One key thing to remember is that if something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.”