FOI 0915-2023/24- Romance Fraud

Request:

Q1.I would like to know how many reports of romance fraud the force has received this year and broken down for 2022, 2021 and 2020 please.

This crime type is described as the engineering of a supposed friendship or relationship for fraudulent/financial gain.

Q2. For each case, can I see if any arrests / charges were brought please.

Response: 

Extent and Result of Searches to Locate Information

To locate the information relevant to your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by North Yorkshire Police.

Decision

I have today decided to disclose the located information to you.

To locate any relevant information, a free text search of “Romance Fraud” and “Romance Scam” has been conducted within the MO / Incident summary. 

Q1. Please see the table below showing the total number of crimes relating to romance scam/fraud reported to North Yorkshire Police for the period beyween 2020 to 2022, broken down by calendar year.

Calendar Year	Total
2020	6
2021	1
2022	9
Total	16

Q2. Of those crimes recorded above only three have an outcome applied which are as follows:

• Evidential difficulties victim based – suspect not identified
• Investigation complete - no suspect identified
• Evidential difficulties prevent further action; victim supports police action

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.