City of London police received almost £29 million in funding from banking and insurance trade bodies over the past five years in an arrangement that has been attacked as a “serious conflict of interest”.
The force, Britain’s leading constabulary for investigating economic crime, received £17 million from the Association of British Insurers (ABI) and a further £11.8 million from UK Finance, the banking industry group, between 2013 and 2018, The Times can reveal.
The funding was used to run units to fight insurance fraud and card and payment crime. The industry groups said that consumers ultimately benefited from the police having extra resources to tackle financial scams.
Anthony Stansfeld, police and crime commissioner for Thames Valley, and a leading campaigner for more resources for police