More than 6,000 cases of Covid-related fraud and cyber-crime have been recorded by the UK’s police forces during the pandemic.
The Action Fraud team said £34.5m had been stolen since 1 March 2020.
It covers activity in England, Wales and Northern Ireland only.
In a related development, speaking to the BBC the National Cyber Security Centre has said it is tackling about 30 “significant attacks” a month against the country’s pandemic response infrastructure.
These involves attempts to breach the NHS, vaccine producers and vaccine supply chains, among other organisations.
“There unfortunately have been a number of successful ransomware incidents against businesses – I can think of roughly around 10,” NCSC operations director Paul Chichester said.
Other figures disclosed by City of London Police, which co-ordinates efforts to combat fraud, include:
- more than 150 related arrests were made since the pandemic began
- more than 2,000 websites, phone numbers and email addresses linked to the crimes were taken down
- there was a total of 416,000 reports of fraud and cyber-crime
The activity peaked between April and May 2020, and January 2021 – both times when lockdowns were in force.
City of London Police also said key workers had also been specifically targeted.
In one case, a man was arrested on suspicion of using social media to advertise bogus car insurance policies to NHS workers.