The Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU) is a proactive operational Police unit with a national remit. It was formed in 2002 in partnership between UK Finance, the City of London Police and the Metropolitan Police.

Their brief is to investigate, target and, where appropriate, arrest and seek successful prosecution of offenders responsible for card, cheque and payment fraud crimes.

In the first half of 2020 the unit disrupted seven organised crime groups, made 70 arrests and secured 30 convictions. Through close collaboration with banks, the telecoms industry and other law enforcement agencies, the unit prevented an estimated £12.5 million of fraud and seized or blocked over £2 million in assets. Also, their partnership with social media platforms led to the identification of accounts that featured posts relating to payment crime and saw more than  500 social media accounts linked to fraudulent activity taken down.

The DCPCU is comprised of officers from the City of London Police and Metropolitan Police as well as banking industry fraud investigators and support staff from UK Finance. It carried out enforcement activity against individuals seeking to use Covid-19 as an opportunity to target victims, executing 25 warrants between March and June 2020.

The DCPCU say they continue to work closely with UK Finance and its members from across the payment industry to tackling the constantly evolving challenges of fraud.

DCPCU recommend that Consumers follow the advice of the Take Five to Stop Fraud campaign to stay safe from fraud, and always question any uninvited approaches to transfer money or give away personal details in case they are a scam.

https://fightback.ninja/take-five-stop-fraud/

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.