Mr. Michael Cryan:

It depends on the type of crime. The banks state approximately half is recovered in an account takeover type of offence, where the money moves from the person’s account to a money mule’s account. There is big success by the banks in recovering that money once they become aware of it quickly. In investment fraud, it is far lower because, unfortunately, it takes time for the victims to become aware they have been the victim of a fraud.

Therefore, the money is already well gone. It could be six or eight months before they report it. It is the same with romance fraud. It takes a victim quite a while before they become aware that they have been the victim of a fraud, so the money is gone. Business email compromise is also one, again, where we have quite a good success rate. Before Christmas we ran an operation, in conjunction with Interpol. Just over €3 million was reported stolen in 14 business email compromises and we recovered €1.7 million of it in banks abroad. Again it is a crime that is reported relatively quickly because the victim becomes aware of it and one can make contact very quickly with the foreign jurisdiction. The later the victim reports it the harder it is to recover it.