Police seize Rolex watches and cash in romance fraud raids

In one of a series of raids this month, police detained a man suspected of selling personal banking information online and enabling fraud through money laundering. Two Rolex watches and £3,000 in cash were seized from his home in the Midlands.

BBC News has been given exclusive access to the City of London Police operation, which involves investigative work by the financial crime unit the Cyber Defence Alliance, as well as coordination with the National Crime Agency and the Nigerian Police Force's cybercrime team.

Many of those arrested are suspected of romance fraud, where scammers often spend months nurturing a relationship with their targets before slowly encouraging them to hand over money.

Kirsty Guest, who was scammed out of £80,000, is one of hundreds of victims targeted by romance fraudsters over the last few years. After coming out of a difficult marriage, the florist from North Yorkshire met a man on a dating app who called himself Patrick. Over months they struck up a romantic relationship.

He built a rapport with me. There was no rush, she says. He explained about things in his childhood, we spoke about places where he'd lived, he spoke about where I'd lived. So there was no real sense that this was going the wrong way for me, there were no red flags.

She says she was excited when she would get a message from him and when she was able to speak to him on the phone. It did make my day, she adds. Then, while he said he was on a business trip abroad, she had a worrying call.

He said he'd been in an accident. I'm the kind of person that would help anyone. When he said that, I just wanted to help him. I wanted to make everything right.

Patrick gave her his bank details so she could help him with some financial transactions, and having a look around she could see he was wealthy. But then he started asking for money to tide him over until he could recover from the accident.

Guest was drawn in, eventually transferring more than £80,000 of her own money to his account and those of his associates, almost certainly money mules.

These are not just gentlemen thieves, confidently swindling us of a few pennies here and there, says Craig Rice, who heads the Cyber Defence Alliance. They're ruining lives and creating misery.

Rice's team of experts from intelligence services, law enforcement and finance work with police to fight fraudsters who cost banks millions in repayments to customers who have been targeted.

Funded by 11 major banks, the unit has been operating in the shadows for close to a decade, but agreed to give BBC News exclusive access to its work earlier this year.

Instead of responding to reports of fraud by victims, the investigators go after organised networks of fraudsters who share scamming expertise or provide software and services for a range of illicit activities, including building fake bank websites, selling bank account details, or laundering money.

Working out of a secure base in Canary Wharf, this little-known fraud squad pulls together dossiers of evidence which are then sent to police forces, who help track down suspects.

The strategy has so far resulted in around 500 arrests and investigators say they are able to hit criminals like Patrick harder and faster.

Even after she went to police, the fraudster called Guest to say he was sorry and that he loved her, drawing her back into his web of lies. Then he asked for more money.

I was angry because I knew what I'd just done, she says. I was angry because I knew that I'd lost everything. I was ashamed at who I'd become.