There were 3.6 million fraud and 2 million computer misuse offences in the 12 months to September 2016, according to the latest Crime Survey for England and Wales .
This is the first time statistics for the full year were included in the report, but the figures are in line with the estimates of 3.8 million fraud and 2 million computer misuse offences included in a report covering the 12 months to March 2016 .
The inclusion of these offences yields a new headline estimate of 11.8 million incidents of crime covered by the survey, but it will be another year before a year-on-year comparison can be made, according to the report by the by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
However, the report said trend data on frauds referred to the police showed an annual rise of 3%, while other industry data on financial fraud, the vast bulk of which is unreported to the police, showed there were 1.9 million cases of frauds on UK-issued cards, representing an increase of 39% from year before.
“In the past, burglary and theft of vehicles were the high-volume crimes driving trends, but their numbers have fallen substantially since then,” said John Flatley, ONS statistician.
