The Independent Review of Disclosure and Fraud Offences warns that near-certain impunity has made fraud a low-risk, high-reward crime, with only 1% of reported cases producing a criminal-justice outcome

The report says victims whose cases are investigated wait an average of 18 months for a charging decision, while a typical serious fraud case takes 442 days to progress from arrival at the Crown Court to completion. Its 47 recommendations respond to fragmented enforcement, weak corporate and online-platform accountability, shortages of specialist investigators, international offending and the growing use of AI, deepfakes and crypto-assets to perpetrate and launder fraud.