Fraud is evolving, so must we:The Power of Collaboration, Insight, and Innovation

By Laura Lehane, Head of Financial Crime and MLRO

Fraud is now the most common crime in the UK, accounting for over 40% of all reported crime. Yet, only a fraction of these cases are ever reported to law enforcement — meaning the true scale is likely far greater. Many victims don’t report fraud — either because they feel embarrassed, blame themselves, or don’t realise they’ve been scammed until much later. Others may report it to their bank but not to law enforcement. In some cases, the fraud is only discovered after significant time has passed, or not at all. This underreporting creates a dangerous gap in visibility — one that fraudsters exploit — and it’s why proactive detection, intelligence sharing, and collaboration are so critical.

One of the most telling early indicators of fraud is large or unusual drawdowns from investment accounts. These can be signs of scam activity — particularly when they’re accompanied by behavioural red flags such as urgency, secrecy, or reluctance to engage. While not every large withdrawal is suspicious, patterns often emerge that point to deeper issues.

What a Large Drawdown Might Be Telling Us

To the untrained eye, a large withdrawal might look like a customer simply moving funds — perhaps for a house purchase, a holiday, or a new investment. But to a trained financial crime team, it can be the start of a very different story.

Take this fictitious example: a customer who has held an account for over a decade suddenly requests to withdraw a significant portion of their funds. There’s no prior history of large transactions, and the customer seems unusually urgent and vague about the reason. When asked, they mention a “friend” who’s helping them invest in a new opportunity — but they’re reluctant to share details.

Behind the scenes, this could be a pig butchering scam in progress (we’ll get to more on Pig Butchering shortly). The “friend” may be a fraudster who has spent weeks or months building trust, convincing the victim they’re in a relationship or mentorship, and guiding them toward a fake investment platform. The urgency? It’s often manufactured — a tactic to prevent the victim from pausing to reflect or seek advice.

This is where our controls, systems, and people come into play. Transaction monitoring flags the drawdown. Behavioural cues raise concerns. Our team steps in — not just to ask questions, but to listen, to ask questions, and to take protective measures.

Why Investment Accounts Are a Target

Investment accounts are particularly attractive to fraudsters because of the high value of the funds they hold. These accounts often contain life savings — pensions, ISAs, or long-term portfolios — making them prime targets for criminals seeking a significant financial return.

This is especially true in investment scams, where victims are persuaded to move their money under fraudulent pretences promising high returns. These scams are often sophisticated, with fake websites, convincing documentation, and even “customer service” teams to maintain the illusion.

But increasingly, these scams are being intertwined with romance fraud — a deeply manipulative form of deception that preys on emotional vulnerability and trust.

The Rise of Pig Butchering

A particularly insidious hybrid of these two fraud typologies is known as pig butchering. In these scams, fraudsters build emotional relationships with victims — often over weeks or months — through dating apps, social media, or messaging platforms. Once trust is established, they introduce a “can’t-miss” investment opportunity, often involving cryptocurrency or foreign exchange.

Victims are shown fake trading platforms that appear to show growing profits. They’re encouraged to invest more, sometimes even allowed to withdraw small amounts to build confidence. But eventually, the fraudster disappears — and the victim is left with nothing.

The emotional manipulation of romance fraud combined with the financial devastation of investment scams makes pig butchering particularly cruel — and alarmingly effective.

The People Behind the Protection

At the heart of our fight against financial crime is a team of passionate, purpose-driven professionals. They are investigators, analysts, technologists, and risk specialists — but more than that, they are advocates for our customers and guardians of trust.

What drives us is not just regulation or compliance — it’s the real-world impact of what we do. Every case we prevent is someone’s life savings protected. Every scam we disrupt is a family spared from financial and emotional trauma. That sense of purpose fuels our work every day.

Our team brings not only technical expertise but also empathy, curiosity, and tenacity. They ask the right questions, challenge assumptions, and never lose sight of the human story behind the data. They are the driving force behind our success — and our greatest asset in this fight.

What Drives Me — And Why This Work Matters

For me, this isn’t just a job — this is where passion meets purpose — and where we get to make a real impact. The potential to save lives, to protect people from financial ruin, and to stop criminals in their tracks is what gets me up in the morning. In a world where fraudsters are constantly evolving, I believe we have the power — and the responsibility — to be superheroes in our own right.

And I’m not alone. My team are the real superheroes here, along with financial crime teams across all sectors. With the right systems, controls, frameworks, and mindset, we operate like a finely tuned cog in a much larger machine. When we do our job well — when we detect, disrupt, and escalate the right intelligence — we pass that information on to the next cog in the system. Whether that’s another institution, a regulator, or law enforcement, our work enables theirs.

And when all those cogs turn together, we don’t just protect one customer or one company — we protect the public.

Why Cross-Platform Collaboration Matters

Fraudsters don’t operate in silos — and neither should we. By sharing intelligence across banks, investment platforms, crypto exchanges, and law enforcement, we can build a network view of risk. This allows us to:

– Spot patterns across institutions
– Identify repeat offenders
– Add friction to criminal activity
– Prevent fraud before it happens

Cross-platform collaboration closes the net around fraudsters and adds friction at every stage of the scam lifecycle. It makes it harder for criminals to move money, harder to hide identities, and harder to exploit victims repeatedly. 

The introduction of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (ECCTA) in 2024 has further enabled this collaboration, providing a legal framework for regulated firms to share customer information securely and responsibly to prevent and detect economic crime. ECCTA is a powerful enabler — but it’s only effective when paired with collaboration, trust, and a shared commitment to protecting people.

The more we collaborate, the more powerful our collective defences become. Proactive, secure data sharing doesn’t just help one firm make a better decision — it helps the entire system respond faster and more effectively. When we share intelligence early and often, we increase the chances that the next institution in the chain will spot the threat, act on it, and stop the harm.

This is how we scale impact. This is how we move from protecting individual customers to safeguarding society.

A Shared Responsibility

Fraudsters are constantly evolving. They exploit technology, psychology, and even global crises to find new victims. But we’re evolving too — through smarter systems, stronger partnerships, and a relentless commitment to doing the right thing.

This is not just a challenge for financial crime teams — it’s a collective responsibility across the entire financial ecosystem. Every institution, every platform, every regulator, and every law enforcement agency has a role to play. When we work together, share intelligence, and act decisively, we don’t just protect our own customers — we protect society.

The stakes are high. Behind every fraud case is a person, someone’s parent, partner, or friend, a family, a life disrupted. And behind every successful intervention is a team that recognised the risk, asked the right questions and took responsibility to act.

This work matters. Not just because it protects money, but because it protects people. When we collaborate, when we share what we know, and when we act with urgency and purpose, we don’t just reduce risk — we change outcomes