A POLICE chief has said technological advances have made life easier for fraudsters.

Between April and June, the overall number of such offences recorded in Scotland was lower than the five-year average but there was a slight increase on the previous year, from 62,494 to 62,922.

Fraudulent crimes grew from 1955 during the same quarter in 2017 to 2584 this year, while detection rates fell from around 41% to 34%.

Assistant Chief Constable Malcolm Graham said: “Advances in technology pose an increased vulnerability when tackling fraud and we have seen an increasing trend in online fraud and crimes involving contactless payments.

“With this form of technology, stolen cards can be monetised quickly and easily while online shopping also allows cloned cards and stolen card details to be used fraudulently.

“However, we are investing in resources and equipping officers with the necessary skills to tackle this growing area of criminality.

“We are also working ever more closely with our banking colleagues. New work in this area is actively preventing fraud through the banking protocol which allows us to protect those who are vulnerable to financial crime.

“Between April and June 2018, £1.05 million was prevented by bank and police teams protecting vulnerable, often elderly, account holders.”