Title: PREVALENCE

Prevalence

Computer crime reporting figures of the federal police (Federal Computer Crime Unit) 

According to the annual report of the Federal Forensic Police (see also section 2.2.1), a record number of cases of computer crime was reported in 2006 to their central complaint site, in total 28,434 cases. 23,883 cases concerned the reporting of ‘Nigerian’ fraud and 2,422 cases concerned phishing. These two activities are increasing very fast, as reported.

Table 2.. Number of reported computer crime cases

The Federal Police did not investigate all reported cases, but only a selection if enough details were submitted. The Federal Police also received an increasing number of requests to identify e-mail addresses (1320), IP addresses (37), pseudonyms, URLs, advertisements and mobile phone numbers, in total 1378 requests for 2006. Such information is in some situations also relevant in investigations of identity related crime.

Document fraud reported by the Federal Police 

The Fifth activity report of the Federal Forensic Police also reports on document fraud.   mentions the number of false identity cards (IK), passports (PP) and residence permits (VD) from 2001 until 2006 according to the type of fraud.

As stated before, document fraud is in general decreasing (especially theft of blank documents (except residence permits), counterfeit and forgery). Because the figures are not showing trends in a consistent way, it remains difficult to draw definite conclusions from these figures.  

Table 2.. Fraud of documents in numbers

Figures by the Banking, Finance and Insurance Commission 

In connection with a recent case of fraud, the Banking, Finance and Insurance Commission (Commissie voor het bank-, financie- en assurantiewezen (CBFA)), which supervises the activities of banks and insurance companies, stated in the press that there had been only 51 or 52 successful attempts of Internet banking fraud cases since 2005, causing a total financial loss of almost 800,000 euro. The Commission said that the cited number of cases is in its opinion rather low, especially in view of the 500,000 daily Internet banking transactions.

Figures about card use  

The use of payment and credit cards also increases considerably. Below are figures about the amounts involved in both the online and offline use of various cards in Belgium. shows a clear increase over the recent years.

Table 2.. Amount of operations (online and offline) (in million of euros) per type of card

Because the use of chip and pincode is now applied to all credit cards, the fraud with these cards would have dropped with 30%, according to Banksys.