FOI 0318-2025/26- Investment scams

Request:

The purpose of this request is to gather data on reported investment scams and the outcomes of these reports, specifically how many resulted in convictions.

Note: For the purpose of this request, "investment scams" refers to fraudulent schemes where individuals are deceived into making financial investments that result in loss. This includes, but is not limited to: pension fraud, cryptocurrency scams, forex trading scams, boiler room schemes, fake bonds or shares, and any other deceptive investment opportunities promoted with the intent to defraud.

Specifically, I am seeking anonymised data on the following from January 2020 to July 2025:

Q1. The total number of investment scam reports received by your force, broken down by calendar year (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and partial data for 2025).

• Of these reports, the number of cases that have resulted in criminal convictions

a. Only if held, the details of those convictions, including:

• Type of sentence (e.g., fine, custodial sentence)

• Amount of any fine issued

• Length of custodial sentences, where applicable

Response:

Extent of Searches to Locate Information

Following receipt of your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police to locate relevant information. 

Decision

I am not obliged to provide you with a response to your request pursuant to Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act). Please note that when one part of your request falls under Section 12, we are not obliged to review the rest of the questions and the whole request is therefore exempt.

Section 12(1) applies to your request as the cost of complying with your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of identifying and retrieving any relevant information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.

Due to the nature of our recording systems the information requested, if held, is not in an easily retrievable format. Our information retrieval process generally relies on a computer ran report which captures any information recorded upon the surface of a record or within specified fields. Where relevant information is held deeper in the record, or outside of a specified field, a manual assessment is required to retrieve that information.

In order to retrieve the requested information, it would be necessary to manually review all fraud reports recorded for the timeframe requested, to determine what type of fraud and what the outcome was. This would mean reading through over 16000 records which would exceed the time limit allowed under the Act. 

Pursuant to Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act this letter acts as a Refusal Notice.

Pursuant to Section 16 of the Act I am required to offer you advice and assistance with regarding to refining your request to within the ‘appropriate limit’ (time/cost limit). However, due to the information provided above I am unable to suggest how you may refine your request and still receive the information within the cost threshold.  If you wish to discuss this please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please note that systems used for recording information are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data.  It should be noted therefore that this force’s response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other responses you may receive.