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Fraud in Wales
Four police forces, more than ten thousand fraud reports in a single year, and a second wave targeting people who have already lost money once. The patterns are consistent, and the checks that defeat them take two minutes.
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The registered route is an exchange whose UK entity is registered with the FCA under the Money Laundering Regulations and settles GBP over Faster Payments.
Most crypto safety advice is written as though the reader is careless. The Welsh fraud data tells a different story. The victims in the cases police have publicised are not reckless people chasing a quick return — they are pensioners with savings, professionals with pension lump sums, and students taking a job offer that looked ordinary. Fraud at this level is a profession, and it succeeds against sensible people.
What follows is the local picture, the patterns that actually work, and a small number of checks that reliably interrupt them.
Force by force
These figures cover all fraud, not crypto alone — but with cryptocurrency accounting for around 40% of UK investment fraud reports, a substantial share of it is crypto-related.
Cardiff, Swansea, Bridgend, Merthyr, RCT
4,091
Fraud reports
≈ £2,645,610
Reported losses
Wrexham, Conwy, Gwynedd, Anglesey, Denbighshire, Flintshire
2,228
Fraud reports
≈ £1,474,801
Reported losses
Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire, Powys
1,886
Fraud reports
≈ £1,504,280
Reported losses
Newport, Torfaen, Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Monmouthshire
1,808
Fraud reports
≈ £976,305
Reported losses
The north Wales figure
Beyond the annual totals, North Wales Police officers have estimated that crypto-related scams alone have cost people across their area approximately £6 million over three years. Publicised cases include a 78-year-old man who lost £346,000 and a 25-year-old who lost £8,000 after seeing a deepfake video appearing to show a senior politician endorsing an investment.
Fraud methods evolve, but the underlying structures are remarkably stable. If you can recognise these six, you have covered the overwhelming majority of what is actually happening in Wales.
A polished website, a dashboard showing steady gains, and a "portfolio manager" who calls regularly. Small withdrawals are honoured early to build trust. The large one never arrives.
The tell
Guaranteed or consistent returns. Pressure to add more before you can withdraw. A firm you cannot find on the FCA Register under its legal entity name.
A video or advert appearing to show a well-known figure endorsing a crypto scheme. AI-generated video has made these convincing enough that a North Wales victim lost £8,000 to one featuring a senior politician.
The tell
Any public figure appearing to promote a specific investment. It is essentially always fake.
A relationship built over weeks or months, entirely remote, that eventually turns to an investment opportunity the other person is doing well from.
The tell
Someone you have never met in person raising money at all. The investment is the point of the relationship.
An approach to someone who has already lost crypto, offering to trace and recover it for an upfront fee. Sometimes impersonating a law firm, a regulator or a blockchain analytics company.
The tell
Any upfront fee to recover lost funds. No legitimate service works this way. Police in Wales warned specifically about this pattern in 2026.
A job offer, a favour, or an account-rental arrangement that involves money passing through your account. Targets students and young people heavily.
The tell
Being paid to receive and forward money. It is money laundering, and the account holder carries the consequence.
A call claiming your account is compromised and that you must move funds to a "safe account", frequently a crypto wallet.
The tell
No bank will ever ask you to move money to keep it safe. Hang up and call the number on your card.
Four checks that stop most of it
The vulnerability here is structural rather than cultural, and it is worth setting out because it explains where prevention effort should go.
Branch closures removed a checkpoint. Bank and building society branches in Wales fell from roughly 695 in 2012 to about 435 by 2022, and closures have continued. Branch counters are usually discussed as an access issue, but a clerk asking "what is this large unusual payment for?" has interrupted a great many frauds. That conversation disappears with the branch.
Advice deserts compound it. Outside Cardiff, and to a lesser extent Swansea and Newport, there are few local professionals with any crypto experience. Someone in rural Powys or on the Denbighshire coast considering a large transfer often has nobody informed to ask.
Demographics. Coastal and rural Wales has an older population profile than the Cardiff city region, including substantial retirement settlement. Investment fraud targets accumulated savings, and pension freedoms have put large accessible sums in the hands of exactly the demographic these operations pursue.
Speed matters more than anything else. Contact your bank immediately — some payments can be recalled if reported within hours, and the Faster Payments network has mechanisms for this. Report to Action Fraud, which is the national reporting centre and feeds the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau. Report to your local force as well: South Wales, Gwent, Dyfed-Powys or North Wales.
If the payment was an authorised push payment to a UK account, reimbursement rules may apply and your bank should assess your claim. If your bank handled the situation badly — ignored warning signs, failed to intervene — the Financial Ombudsman Service can consider a complaint about the banking conduct, even though it will not adjudicate on the cryptoasset investment itself.
Preserve everything: messages, screenshots, transaction IDs, wallet addresses, phone numbers, website URLs. Blockchain transactions are permanent and traceable, and while that rarely leads to recovery it materially helps investigation.
Deal only with firms whose UK entity you have personally found on the FCA Register. Never act on an unsolicited approach, in any channel, about any investment. Treat any request for confidentiality as conclusive evidence of fraud. Tell one uninvolved person before any significant transaction. Use an authenticator app rather than SMS for two-factor authentication. Never allow anyone remote access to your device. And be sceptical of video — deepfake technology has passed the point where a convincing endorsement means anything at all.
None of that is difficult. What makes it work is doing it as a habit rather than as a response to suspicion, because by the time you are suspicious the operation has usually already had weeks to work on you.
A registered platform, an account in your own name, funded from your own bank, with nobody involved who contacted you first.
Questions
In the 2023-24 financial year, the four Welsh police forces recorded a combined 10,013 fraud reports with losses of roughly £6.6 million. Separately, North Wales Police have estimated that crypto-related scams alone cost people in their area around £6 million over three years.
Nationally, cryptocurrency was the most common commodity in UK investment fraud reports, accounting for around 40% of them. Reported figures also understate the problem — fraud is among the most under-reported crimes there is.
An approach to someone who has already lost money to crypto fraud, offering to trace and recover it in exchange for an upfront fee. The approach may impersonate a law firm, a regulator, a blockchain analytics firm or a police unit.
There is no legitimate service that works this way. Police in Wales issued specific warnings in 2026 about victims being targeted a second time. If you have lost crypto, report it to Action Fraud and treat every unsolicited recovery offer as fraudulent.
Search the FCA Register for the firm's legal entity name — not its brand, which is often different. Confirm the permission is a cryptoasset registration under the Money Laundering Regulations. Check the entity name matches the one in the terms and conditions and on the payment instructions.
Also check the FCA warning list. And be aware of clone firms — fraudsters copying the details of a genuine registered business.
Sometimes, and speed matters enormously. Contact your bank immediately — some payments can be recalled if reported within hours. Report to Action Fraud. If the payment was an authorised push payment to a UK account, reimbursement rules may apply and your bank should assess your claim.
Once funds have been converted to crypto and moved to an external wallet, recovery becomes very difficult. That is the honest position, and it is why the checks beforehand matter so much.
Several factors compound. Investment fraud targets people with accumulated savings and pension lump sums. Bank branch closures have removed the counter conversation that used to interrupt unusual payments — Welsh branches fell from roughly 695 in 2012 to about 435 by 2022. And in much of rural and coastal Wales there is no local adviser to consult.
North Wales Police publicised a case in which a 78-year-old lost £346,000. That is not carelessness; it is what a professional, sustained fraud operation achieves against an isolated target.
Ask three questions calmly: who approached whom, is the firm on the FCA Register under its legal entity name, and has anyone asked them to keep it confidential. Any one of an unsolicited approach, an unregistered firm or a request for secrecy is enough to stop and get help.
Avoid confrontation — victims of long-running frauds often defend the fraudster, and pushing hard can entrench them. Involve their bank, and report to Action Fraud even if they will not.
They would be if any existed. Our audit found none operating in Wales, and no UK operator holds the FCA registration required. Historically, unregistered machines were used in coercion frauds — a victim on the phone with a fake police officer or bank official, being directed to a terminal — precisely because the transaction is fast and irreversible. See our ATM audit.
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