Exclusive: Senior police are planning to create a national fraud office in Scotland to tackle the most complex and expensive cases.
Senior police are planning to create a national fraud office in Scotland to tackle the most complex and expensive cases.
Officers have proposed that while the eight forces should still deal with local fraud, complex and international cases should be handled by a specialist national body incorporating experts from the Crown Office and Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.
Ministers are understood to back the move.
It is estimated that, on average, £330 for every man, woman and child in Scotland is lost through fraud each year.
Credit and debit card fraud alone is estimated to cost Scotland £11.5m a year. Between £13bn and £20bn is lost to all scams across the UK.
The Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (Acpos) has set up a working group, chaired by Detective Superintendent David Leach of Strathclyde Police, to consider the best model to adopt north of the border. Acpos said the report is due to be completed by the end of next month.
The aim is to improve the police decision-making process on whether to investigate fraud and the system for recording such crimes.
Discussions are under way to consider how best to pay for the body and Westminster has been asked to contribute as several of the agencies involved are nominally funded by it.
One of the most likely scenarios is that the new national fraud agency would be based at the "supercampus" set to be built at Gartcosh by 2012, which will house a number of agencies including the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency and Serious Organised Crime Agency.
In England and Wales, complex fraud cases are covered by the Serious Fraud Office. With an annual budget of £40m and a staff of more than 300 lawyers, accountants and investigators, it was designed to spearhead the fight against complex cases, but it has been mired in controversy and criticised for its low hit rate.
Last year, Paddy Tomkins, Chief Inspector of Constabulary for Scotland, recommended creating a fraud squad within the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency to expose links between drug crime and fraud. However, the suggestion that fraud investigation should be centralised under the agency was reported to cause some controversy with individual police forces.
