Press Release

FLA FUNDS INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM TO COMBAT FRAUD

27 February 2007

As a next step in its fight against vehicle crime, the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) has made a donation of £20,000 to the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service. This will enable the Service to put its systems in place.

Detective Superintendent John Wake, who heads up the Service, welcomed the funding:

“I would like to thank the FLA and its members for making this donation to the ACPO Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service. This will be used to further develop the intelligence management system for the unit in order to facilitate a swift analysis and distribution of real-time crime intelligence. Vehicle-enabled crime touches all members of society in many ways and very few crimes are committed without a vehicle featuring somewhere in the commission. Our aim through intelligence-led operations and investigation tools is to thwart this activity"

FLA takes prevention and investigation of financial crime very seriously, and has a track record of funding effective police work. Our members fund the Vehicle Fraud Unit – part of the Metropolitan Police Service – which recovers fraudulently-obtained vehicles on finance. To date, the Unit has recovered cars worth over £9 million. In addition we sponsor the Port of Tilbury police force to enable them to devote extra resources to checking and recovering vehicles that were subject either to finance or to an insurance claim.

We take a leading role in the credit industry in initiating cost-effective and ground-breaking projects in this area, and we maintain a number of standing groups of members on financial crime-related issues. We are represented on the Home Office’s Identity Fraud Steering Committee and Identity Fraud Forum, on the Cross Sector Data Sharing Sub-group, and on the North West Fraud Forum.

Martin Hall, FLA Director General said:

“This contribution underlines FLA’s continuing commitment to combating vehicle crime which in 2006 cost our members £17 million. Vehicle crime has close links with serious organised criminals. In reality, most crimes involve vehicles. This funding complements what we provide to the Met’s Vehicle Fraud Unit. We hope this seed corn grant will raise national awareness of the crucial work the police do in this area. We live in hope that tackling financial crime, including fraud, will move higher up the political agenda.”