Latest news with #informants
Telegraph
3 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Tax snoops send record 165,000 tip-offs to HMRC
Do you have experience with HMRC's tax fraud tip-off system? Email: money@ HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) received a record number of tip-offs last year from individuals snitching on friends, neighbours and businesses. The tax office rewards informants who provide intelligence on possible tax fraud. In 2024-25, there were 164,670 reports to its fraud hotline channels, up 9pc year-on-year, according to analysis by accountancy firm, Price Bailey. Data obtained under Freedom of Information rules shows the number of reports has hit an all-time high, yet payments have slumped for the first time in four years. HMRC awarded just £852,438 to whistleblowers last year, down 13pc since 2023-24. The UK tax office currently has a much less generous reward scheme than its US equivalent, which has led to concerns that potential whistleblowers lack incentives to report cases of tax fraud. HMRC only compensates informants on a discretionary basis depending on the amount of tax recovered and time saved in investigations. By comparison, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) awards between 15pc to 30pc of the proceeds recovered as a result of intelligence provided. It handed £123.5m to whistleblowers in the most recent financial year. However, the IRS only pays an award if the amount recovered is more than $2m (£1.5m). In addition, if the fraud or evasion relates to an individual, then that individual must have a gross income of over $200,000 for at least one of the tax years in question. Earlier this year, HMRC unveiled plans for a new reward scheme modelled off the IRS scheme, where informants receive a percentage of the tax recovered. This is expected by the end of the year. HMRC said there is no direct connection between the number of reports received and the amount of money paid in a given year. Andrew Park, of accountancy firm Price Bailey, said that discretionary payments meant there was little incentive to report tax fraud, particularly in complex cases where whistleblowers were also employees. 'While HMRC depends increasingly on taxpayer intelligence to close the £5.5bn tax fraud gap, the current reward system lacks both scale and clarity,' he said. The proposed reward scheme is one of a number of measures aimed at reducing the so-called 'tax gap' – the difference between the tax HMRC should collect and the tax it actually collects. About 60pc is attributed to small businesses with a turnover of less than £10m. The Treasury hopes to raise £7.5bn a year in extra tax by 2029-30 through its measures to reduce the gap. John Hood, of accountancy firm Moore Kingston Smith, said: 'HMRC works closely with other tax jurisdictions across the globe, and will be painfully aware of the gulf between the effectiveness of the fraud hotline in the UK and in the US.' He continued: 'In the US, whistleblowers are warned that they face penalties for perjury if the information is incorrect. The sum recovered needs to be more than $2m for an award to be made, and the whistleblower must wait until the tax owed has been recovered. 'Obtaining high quality, up-to-date information from whistleblowers will greatly assist HMRC's efforts to target high value tax avoidance and evasion.' An HMRC spokesman said: 'The Government is strengthening our scheme for rewarding informants to encourage reporting of high value tax fraud and tax avoidance. 'We value the information we receive, and urge anyone with information about tax fraud to report it to us online by going to and searching 'report fraud HMRC'.'
Fox News
28-06-2025
- Fox News
Sinaloa cartel hacker turned Mexico City cameras against FBI, leading to killings, DOJ says
A hacker working for the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico was able to obtain an FBI official's phone record information in 2018 and used Mexico City's surveillance camera system to track and kill informants and witnesses, the Justice Department said in a report. The 2018 incident was disclosed in the Justice Department Inspector General's audit of the FBI's efforts to "Mitigate the Effects of Ubiquitous Technical Surveillance." The report said the FBI was working on the case of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the former leader of the infamous cartel who was extradited to the United States in 2017, when someone tipped the FBI that the drug-trafficking organization hired a hacker "who offered a menu of services related to exploiting mobile phones and other electronic devices." The hacker was able to identify an FBI assistant legal attaché (ALAT) at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City and was able to use the attaché's phone number "to obtain calls made and received, as well as geolocation data." "According to the FBI, in addition to compromising the ALAT's phone, the hacker also accessed Mexico City's camera system, used the cameras to follow the ALAT through the city, and identified people the ALAT met with," the report states. "According to the case agent, the cartel used that information to intimidate and/or kill potential sources or cooperating witnesses." The hacker and victims were not identified in the report. Fox News Digital has reached out to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, the State Department, the FBI and Justice Department. The report noted that advances in technology have "made it easier than ever for less-sophisticated nations and criminal enterprises to identify and exploit vulnerabilities" created by UTS, a term used to describe the widespread collection and storage od data and analysis often from everyday technologies like smartphones, computers and even vehicles.
National Post
10-06-2025
- National Post
Lost RCMP USB stick identifying informants and witnesses offered for sale by criminals
The RCMP lost a memory key containing personal information about victims, witnesses and informants, and later learned it was being offered for sale by criminals, the federal privacy watchdog says. Article content A detailed report from the office of privacy commissioner Philippe Dufresne reveals the RCMP told the watchdog about the breach in March 2022, prompting a lengthy investigation. Article content Article content The RCMP determined that the unencrypted USB storage device contained the personal information of 1,741 people, including witnesses, complainants, subjects of interest, informants, police officers and civilian employees. Article content Article content 'The RCMP's investigation also established that only some of the documents on the device were password protected and that the device itself was not encrypted nor password protected,' the privacy watchdog's report says. Article content The Mounties learned from a confidential source three weeks after the loss that the data on the device was being offered for sale by members of the criminal community. Article content 'Given the nature and sensitivity of the information that the RCMP handles on a daily basis, (our office) would have expected the RCMP to have strict security measures in place to safeguard its information holdings,' the privacy commissioner's report says. Article content Article content 'We also would have expected for those measures to be stringently monitored and that the RCMP would take prompt action where non-compliance, whether accidental or not, is discovered.' Article content Article content Dufresne's office found the RCMP violated the Privacy Act, given that the personal information of individuals was disclosed without their consent. Article content The privacy watchdog also concluded that RCMP personnel failed to report the loss of the USB storage device to the force's authorities in a timely manner. Article content However, once aware of the breach, the RCMP's notification to affected individuals and the steps taken to manage the risk of further harm to them were 'generally appropriate in the circumstance,' the report says.
Washington Post
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
The fall of Assad's informant state leaves Syria riven by betrayals
DAMASCUS — The Assad regime made Syria an informant state, with surveillance that turned the country on itself. Neighbors and colleagues reported on each other in every district and workplace: what they said, where they went, who came for dinner. After more than half a century, that suffocating regime melted away overnight in December, as rebel forces marched on the capital, Damascus. Left behind is a society divided by the suspicion and perfidy, shadowed by the question of who among them had quietly contributed to the Assads' tyranny.
