New bid for HQ to lead crackdown on fraud
Sep 10 2008 by Andrew Mernin, The Journal
A COLLECTION of public and private sector organisations is preparing a multi-million pound bid for European funding to build an anti-fraud institute in the region.
The North East Fraud Forum (NEFF), whose members include police forces, universities and businesses, is also weighing up a bid for around £600,000 to run its successful fraud-awareness seminars across Europe.
The NEFF was set up by five years ago with the aim of raising awareness among businesses of the latest scams and frauds and educate on topics such as counterfeiting and money laundering.
The not-for-profit group, which is backed by Northumbria, Cleveland and Durham police forces, alongside universities and businesses, has proved such a success that it has since been modelled in nine other regions where it has gained the backing of around 2,000 public and private-sector bodies.
The group, which is supported by The Journal alongside 200 businesses in the North East, also helped launch a national anti-fraud network chaired by Alan Brown, former deputy chief constable of Northumbria Police.
NEFF chairman Mr Brown said: “This will be a mega-bid to build the institute in the North East. The idea originated in North East and the support is coming from the North East.
“We’ve identified the problem, we want to do something about it and if we can get the funding to support the notion of eliminating fraud using technology developing more awareness then we’d like to be able to do it because there are scientific solutions to some of these problems.”
