Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps the National Crime Agency is taking to investigate organised financial crime networks coordinating fraud schemes involving overseas equities and UK-based victims; and whether she is making additional enforcement resources available to support those investigations.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) continuously assesses the origin of organised financial networks targeting UK based victims from overseas and does so through in-depth analysis of intelligence from across the public and private sectors.

This analysis enables the identification of key jurisdictions of risk which in-turn determines the prioritisation of resources and enrichment of partnerships with international law enforcement, the latter being afforded by the NCA’s niche capability of an international network comprising officers deployed in 50 countries worldwide.

Through these relationships, the NCA seek to disrupt and dismantle organised crime groups using various tools including protracted joint investigations, capacity building and information sharing. Efforts this year, have resulted in a significant uplift on executive action being undertaken in source countries which have specifically targeted UK victims through high-harm fraud threats types.