Investment fraud in UK soared to more than £220m lost last year, trade body says

Increasingly elaborate investment scams involving gold, cryptocurrencies and wine have soared in the past year with more than £220m lost to the fraud, according to a report.

UK banks reported almost 15,000 investment scams in 2025 as criminals use artificial intelligence to dupe people out of their money.

About £221.5m was lost to scams in which people were persuaded to move their money to a fake investment or a fictitious fund, a rise of 40% from the year before, according to the report from UK Finance.

This particular fraud is popular among criminals as it often has high returns, according to Ruth Ray, the trade body’s managing director for economic crime. Advances in AI means it is easier to carry out scams on a much larger scale than previously.

Typically, criminals will promise high returns on investments that could range from gold, property and carbon credits to cryptocurrencies and wine. Last week the Bank of England cautioned the public against falling for AI-generated scams after deepfake videos of the Reform leader, Nigel Farage, fighting the Bank’s governor, Andrew Bailey, spread online.

Ray said: “AI is making that easier because it allows you to make all of your communications more sophisticated. It allows you to spin up websites quickly and easily to make your business look legitimate when it may be otherwise.

“It allows you to send out messages at scale and contact users by telephone at scale, and also it can allow you to mimic voices of celebrities or even people’s friends and family to fool people into thinking that they are dealing with a legitimate entity.”

The annual fraud report revealed that a total of £1.28bn was stolen last year, an increase of 4%, and there were more than 4m cases. This suggests that eight people are being defrauded of a total of £2,500 every minute, according to UK Finance.

Authorised push payment (APP) frauds, whereby criminals trick an individual into transferring money to an account they hold, were up by almost a fifth. There has been an increase in the number of purchase scams, whereby people are duped into paying for nonexistent goods or services. Romance fraud, in which victims pay people they feel they are in a relationship with, has also increased.

The mandatory fraud reimbursement scheme for APP fraud reimbursed 88% of losses, the report said.

after newsletter promotion

There was a repeated call for tech platforms, where many scams originate, to be forced to verify online sellers and to contribute more money to fraud prevention. Ray said tech companies had the ability to tackle more fraud but were not investing in the expertise to do so. Meta and TikTok were approached for comment.

“Given most APP fraud still starts via online tech platforms or via telecoms, we urgently need stronger, enforceable responsibilities to be placed on these sectors. This is the way to reduce the harm and stop criminals and tech companies profiting from these devastating crimes,” Ray said.