3 min read
A major UK review of fraud has recommended that judges and magistrates be trained to handle a coming wave of cases involving cryptocurrency money laundering and fraud powered by artificial intelligence.
The recommendation lands in "Fraud in the Digital Age," the second report from the Independent Review of Disclosure and Fraud Offences, chaired by barrister Jonathan Fisher KC and published Tuesday by the Home Office. It urges the government to invite the Judicial College, which trains the judiciary in England and Wales, to review how best to prepare "all judges, including magistrates" for the likely increase in AI-enabled fraud and "the laundering of money/assets using cryptocurrencies."
The review's concern lies with the courts. The Fraud Act 2006 is "broadly sound" and "well placed to address AI-enabled fraud," it says—the difficulty is that the courts hearing these cases increasingly aren't equipped for them.
Tools once reserved for sophisticated criminals are "now widely accessible," the report says, meaning magistrates and non-specialist Crown Court centres "will face cases of a nature and scale they have not previously encountered," leveraging AI, cross-border fund transfers and cryptocurrency. Training for the toughest trials already exists through the Judicial College's "Long and Complex Trials" course, but it is optional and, the review notes, often overshadowed by other courses. Complex fraud work is concentrated among a cadre of judges in major cities, leaving regional Crown Courts short on both experience and infrastructure.
The report recommends asking the college to weigh whether that course should be updated or replaced with a bespoke module on fraud and related offences—and whether such training should be mandatory for any judge likely to preside over complex fraud. Fisher further noted that, "in light of the volume of fraud cases, it would be valuable for the wider judiciary to have a greater awareness of how to manage cases involving AI-enabled fraud and cryptocurrency-based money laundering."
Fraud may soon account for half of all crime in England and Wales, the report says, with an estimated 4.1 million offences in the year to June 2025, impacting one in 14 adults and one in four businesses. Both AI and crypto feature heavily, with more than half of investment scams now involving crypto-assets, according to the Financial Ombudsman Service, while an Ada Lovelace Institute survey found that 58% of respondents had encountered AI-enabled financial fraud.
Yet enforcement barely keeps pace. Only 13% of fraud outcomes end in a charge or summons, the review found—about one in every 54 reports.
The report highlights the recent prosecution of Qian Zhimin, who ran a Ponzi scheme in China that defrauded more than 128,000 victims of around £5 billion, then laundered the proceeds into Bitcoin—producing the largest confirmed Bitcoin seizure in UK history, more than 61,000 BTC. She was sentenced in November to 11 years and eight months at Southwark Crown Court under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.
That haul has yet to be untangled: the fate of the seized Bitcoin remains locked in a tug-of-war between defrauded victims, the UK government, and China, with Treasury officials having floated keeping some of it to shore up public finances.
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