A hard-hitting report has stated that the UK’s efforts to tackle such crime is being hampered by underfunding. Aziz Rahman considers the situation.
As an assessment of Britain’s fight against economic crime, the recently-published report by Spotlight on Corruption appears to offer little cause for optimism.
The UK-based charity said that Britain’s efforts were being weakened by chronic underfunding. Spotlight argued that law enforcement agencies would be more effective if they were able to use the £3.9 billion collected from 2016 to 2021 from criminals in fines, confiscation, forfeiture and civil recovery orders. It emphasised that the government spends just 0.04% of gross domestic product – which is £852 million a year – on fighting economic crime, yet such crime costs Britain’s economy 14.5% of GDP, which equals £290 billion every year.
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