The UK is set to ban telemarketing calls selling financial products, including insurance and cryptocurrency, as a crackdown on fraud. The National Crime Agency estimates that fraud costs the country about 7 billion pounds ($8.7 billion) a year.
The UK government announced its new anti-fraud strategy and promised 400 new jobs to update its approach to intelligence-informed policing. The government will work with telecoms regulator, the Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, to use new technology to counter phone number spoofing, which would prevent fraudsters from impersonating legitimate UK phone numbers. United.
According to Bloomberg, electronic fraud is currently the most frequent crime in the United Kingdom, of which 1 in 15 people are victims. To ensure that more victims of fraud get their money back, the government intends to introduce laws that require financial institutions to reimburse victims of authorized fraud.
A report published on 29 January by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and The Observer shows that organized crime syndicates use the UK as a base of operations due to the region’s “lenient regulations”. Registering a company in the UK costs just £12 ($14.85). It does not require any form of identification, making it easy for fraudulent companies to register there and gain false credibility.
The UK government has attempted to clamp down on cryptocurrency companies operating in the region. The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ordered all companies engaged in cryptoactive activity to register with it under the current rules of the Financial Services and Markets Act for the cryptocurrency market. digital assets.
However, the FCA has taken a strict approach when it comes to granting authorizations, which has resulted in several cryptocurrency-related companies operating as unregistered entities. The regulator appears to be striving to find a balance between creating a safe environment for investors and encouraging innovation in the sector.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reportedly said in a statement that scammers “ruin lives in a matter of seconds, fooling people in the most despicable ways to line their pockets.” He vowed to fight these scammers wherever they try to hide. The government also vowed to end methods commonly used by scammers to reach thousands of people at once, such as “SIM farms.” The use of mass text messaging services will also be reviewed to prevent these technologies from falling into the hands of criminals.
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