Fairytale beginnings

If last year the Cinderella of policing found her glass slipper with the launch of the National Fraud (Strategic) Authority, in 2009 she has been able to stay at the ball with her dance card filled, Commissioner Mike Bowron of the City of London Police told delegates to the 3rd Annual London Fraud Forum conference. He was speaking the day before the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), which falls in the City of London force remit, commenced operations on 1 October. The IT contract with Detica was signed the previous week. The NFIB will pull in data from existing sources and the new National Fraud Reporting Centre (NFRC), which will is scheduled for a six-month pilot from the end of October before national roll-out. Priorities, said Bowron, are the “three Es”: Engineering out fraud in systems and product design; Education; and Enforcement and he sees the NFIB as akin to “a department store with different concessions” from which counter fraud bodies may garner information to fit their needs. Initial work programmes will focus on mass marketing fraud, mortgage and investment frauds, overseas corruption, and intellectual property crime. Bowron is keen for the private sector to second people into the bureau to work alongside staff from the likes of the Financial Services Authority, CIFAS and the Serious Organised Crime Agency.