Great Western Railway seeks a solution to enable the investigation and prosecution of more complex fraud cases

To enable a transformation in the way they tackled fraud cases to improve the rate of loss recovery.

About Great Western Railway

The Great Western Railway (GWR) is one of the largest train companies in Britain. More than 100 million customers travel on the GWR network each year. GWR is part of FirstGroup plc – the leading transport operator in the UK and North America.

The problem

Railway networks are complex, made up of numerous routes, suppliers and operators. The complexity can make it hard to pursue anything but the most minor offences to prosecution, such as single incident fare evasion. However, GWR is taking a holistic approach to the loss incurred from Journey Related Fraud and are not only looking at the activity of the individual passengers, but also organised crime investigations, systematic and determined fraudsters and prolific fare evaders are all included in their case count.

Product used
Insight

Sector
Transport – Railway

Territory
UK

In order to tackle more complex and higher value fraud cases, and to recover more losses, GWR knew they needed to transform the way they were tackling fraud investigations.

Because GWR is not a statutory prosecution agency, all cases need to be taken on by the Police or must be pursued privately. In either case, it’s critical that a professional investigation has been followed and can be demonstrated.

GWR hired an experienced team of investigators as Fraud Managers who had four clear objectives:

• To identify the offender
• Calculate the loss
• Recover the loss
• Investigate to a criminal standard of proof

In order to do this and to carry out their investigations to the right standard,
the team needed the right, proven tools to support their cases.

The GWR Fraud Manager Team now uses Insight to run their serious and high
value fraud investigations.

The cases are investigated internally, obtaining witness statements,
producing exhibits and doing CPIA disclosure (the statutory framework for the
disclosure of material to defendants which the prosecution does not intend to
use as evidence in the case). By using Insight to support their own practices,
the team can demonstrate the whole process has been managed ethically
and recorded to evidentiary standards.

If the team is unable to recover the loss themselves, they can take the case to
the police, secure in the knowledge that they are presenting a professionally
investigated and legally compliant package.

It also provides GWR the right level of information and confidence from which
to assess the likely success of pursuing a private investigation if the police are
not able to take the case on.

GWR has 77 cases loaded on to Insight, with an estimated loss value of over £150k, and a backlog of a similar number awaiting loading.

GWR have already recovered over £35k from 17 investigations, plus a live cyber crime investigation has been handed to the police.