New analysis by Spotlight on Corruption of official data released today shows that prosecutions for economic crime are on the rise but convictions are falling behind, suggesting that serious investment and criminal justice reforms are needed to deter dirty money.
Money laundering
- Prosecutions have started to gradually increase after hitting an all-time low in 2023-24.
- There were 1,940 prosecutions in 2025-26, a 4.7% increase compared to 2024-25.
- While prosecution rates have started to recover, they are still 28% lower than the highest number of prosecutions achieved in the last 15 years.
- However, convictions have flatlined with just a 0.2% increase in convictions in 2025-26 compared to the previous year.
Fraud
- Fraud prosecutions saw a small 8.5% increase, while convictions edged up by 2.3%.
- However, these prosecutions remain 72% below the highest number of fraud prosecutions in the last 15 years, despite fraud making up 45% of all crime.
Bribery
- The official data suggests that bribery remains seriously underenforced, with just five prosecutions in 2025-26.
- This is despite official research showing that 117,000 bribe offers were made in the UK in 2023-24.
Misconduct in public office (MIPO)
- Prosecutions were slightly down and convictions slightly up for MIPO – the closest thing the UK has to a domestic corruption offence – continuing the significant increase seen since 2023-24.
- This follows the injection of £15m under the Anti-Corruption Strategy for the newly established Domestic Corruption Unit at the City of London Police, which has already secured high-profile arrests including in a case involving the Police Federation of England and Wales.
Court backlogs impact convictions
The turnaround shows that recent prioritisation of and investment in fighting economic crime is starting to pay off. But there has been a clear failure to convert prosecutions into convictions, likely the result of the huge court backlog which is particularly acute for economic crime offences.
Fraud cases take eight times longer than the average criminal case to be charged after a criminal investigation has been opened and a typical serious fraud case takes twice as long as an ordinary case to get through the court system.
Prosecutions against white collar criminals and corporates almost non-existent
While these green shoots of enforcement activity are welcome, it is almost certain that most of the money laundering prosecutions relate to enforcement activity targeted at lower-level criminals.
Research published last month by leading academics found that adults under 30 make up the largest proportion of money laundering arrests. Interviews conducted with law enforcement officials suggested this is due to younger people being increasingly recruited as ‘money mules’.
Meanwhile, convictions of regulated white-collar professionals for failing to disclose knowledge or suspicions of money laundering by their clients are rare, with just eight prosecutions in the last five years and only two convictions.
More investment needed to fight economic crime
A clear way to increase resourcing is through an Economic Crime Fighting Fund that reinvests some of the millions generated each year by enforcement agencies through fines and recovered assets back into their work. But this needs to come with a sustained strategy to tackle high-end money laundering and the professionals who enable dirty money to flow through the UK’s financial system.
James Bolton-Jones, Senior Policy Researcher at Spotlight on Corruption said:
“These encouraging statistics are a testament to successive governments increasing their focus on economic crime. But we are only at base camp and still have a mountain to climb. Fraud is still massively under-resourced compared to the scale of the problem; bribery enforcement remains weak; and money laundering prosecutions appear to be targeting low-hanging fruit while white-collar criminals more often than not get off scot free.
With a major review by global watchdog the Financial Action Task Force coming next year, the UK urgently needs to up its game when it comes to prosecuting professionals like lawyers and accountants who sit at the heart of transnational corruption networks”.
Phil Brickell MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Anti-Corruption and Responsible Tax who spent more than a decade in the financial services sector working on bribery, corruption, tax evasion facilitation and money laundering before entering Parliament said:
“It’s encouraging to see more people being prosecuted for economic crime offences, crimes that blight our communities, pollute local high streets, and degrade the wider economy. This really matters to my own constituents, who want to see organised criminals – whose whole business model depends on laundering the proceeds of their despicable crimes – being held to account.
“But the decline in successful convictions should be a flashing warning light. The data shows once again that we are underfunding those trying to put criminals behind bars. We need to back up our law enforcement agencies with a robust cross-government Economic Crime Fighting Fund which makes criminals the first to pay for the fight against economic crime. Ministers should set out how they will deliver this in the forthcoming Economic Crime Plan. Failure to do so would risk slipping back into a cycle of under-enforcement that lets criminals and corrupt actors thrive.”
Dr Samantha Mapston, Associate Professor in Economic Crime Law, Faculty of Business and Law, University of the West of England, said:
“Our study was the first to reveal the number of money laundering offences, which collectively include arrests and charges, being recorded by police forces across the UK. The fact that adults under 30 make up the largest proportion of arrests, combined with our interviews with law enforcement officials suggests this is due to younger people being increasingly recruited as money mules. Taken together, the data suggests that enforcement efforts are more effective in addressing simpler, lower-level money laundering activity, while more complex financial crime cases present greater challenges in achieving successful prosecutions”.
Ends
Media contact
Harmit Kambo
07449 102 458
press@spotlightcorruption.org
Notes to Editors
About Spotlight on Corruption
- Spotlight on Corruption shines a light on the UK’s role in corruption at home and abroad. We want to see a society with strong, transparent and accountable institutions which ensure corruption is not tolerated and democracy flourishes both in the UK and globally. To achieve this we highlight corruption and the harm it causes, and campaign to improve the UK’s legal systems and enforcement of the law.
About the Anti-Corruption Enforcement Tracker
- Spotlight on Corruption’s Anti-Corruption Enforcement Tracker is a unique resource pulling together data that is publicly accessible but often located in hard-to-find spreadsheets. Its aim is to increase public understanding of how the UK is faring when it comes to enforcing against corruption and other related economic crimes.
- You can access the tracker at https://www.spotlightcorruption.org/corruption-and-economic-crime-enforcement-tracker/
About the research on money mules by Cardiff University and the University of the West of England
- Money mules are individuals who transfer the proceeds of crime on behalf of criminals, often through a bank account, to disguise the source of the funds and complicate or frustrate investigation by law enforcement agencies.
- The research was led by Professor Nicholas Ryder from Cardiff University’s School of Law and Politics, and was co-authored by Dr Samantha Mapston, of Bristol Law School at the University of the West of England.
- You can access their research here: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/188349/
