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21 November 2006
The UK and Nigeria both need to do more to deal with the high level of scams and fraud coming from the African country, which costs the UK billions of pounds, according to a new report.
Research by Chatham House, an independent body, has concluded that Nigerian-related fraud has become a "large and pressing problem" which has not been given sufficient priority.
It says £150 million alone is lost to the UK economy through scams that lure people into believing they will share in the proceeds of an international laundering operation designed to move money out of the country, with the victim's bank details then used to steal from their accounts.
Report author Michael Peel questioned the sincerity of the respective governments when it came to promising action, suggesting that "limited" reforms introduced had not gone far enough.
He said: "Their [fraudsters] successes reflect wider political and logistical shortcomings with the way the British authorities deal with financial crime."
Mr Peel claimed that wider political and commercial interests had held back the introduction of measures such as closer links between the financial services authority and their Nigerian counterparts.
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