Outdated technology impeding economic crime investigations, researchers warn

Outdated technology and structural challenges are impeding the UK’s response to economic crime, a new study has found.

Researchers have warned that poor data-sharing arrangements are hampering investigations and intelligence gathering, while competing priorities across multiple agencies are limiting the ability to devote resources to tackling the threat.

The study called for improved data-sharing and intelligence infrastructure to allow better co-working, adding that formalised but flexible accountability arrangements would also help.

It also called for a shared definition of economic crime, which researchers said was currently large in scope and without clear boundaries, making it difficult to prioritise different threats.

The study comes from researchers at the University of Manchester, who examined the work of the National Economic Crime Centre – a multi-agency body established in 2018 to combat challenges including fraud, money laundering, bribery and corruption.

Professor Nicholas Lord, a criminology expert at the university, said: “The National Economic Crime Centre was created to bring together the many organisations involved in tackling economic crime, recognising the need for a collective response.

“However, coordinating agencies with different responsibilities, priorities and resources is not straightforward, and certainly needs more than goodwill.”

Fraud is now one of the most common crimes in the UK, while money laundering is linked with serious and organised crime.

The study highlighted concerns about the outdated technological tools being used by investigators, particularly in the public sector where collaboration and data analysis capabilities are lagging behind the private.

This means information gathering which should take days is often taking considerably longer.

On resourcing, researchers said that while the tag of economic crime helps capture political attention and funding, it can obscure differences between the types of crimes that require different responses. 

The study drew on interviews with senior officials within the National Crime Agency, HMRC, the Serious Fraud Office, the Financial Conduct Authority, the City of London Police and private-sector partners.

The findings were first published in the Journal of Economic Criminology.