FOI 345/25

REQUEST

I am requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 regarding police investigations into unregulated immigration advice or fraudulent immigration services.

Specifically, please provide the following data for the past four financial years (2021/22, 2022/23, 2023/24, up to February 2025):

1. The number of reports or complaints received related to unregulated immigration advice or fraudulent immigration services.
2. The number of investigations initiated by South Wales Police related to these offences.
3. The number of arrests made in connection with unregulated immigration advice or fraudulent immigration services.
4. A breakdown of offences charged (e.g., under the Fraud Act 2006, Immigration and Asylum Act 1999).

RESPONSE

Your request for information has now been considered and I am not obliged to supply the information you have requested.       

In relation to your request, the following exemption applies:

Section 12 – Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit.

We consulted with our Crime & Criminal Justice department who have advised the information you have requested is not recorded in an easily retrievable format. Unfortunately, there is no specific fraud category in relation to unregulated immigration advice or fraudulent immigration services.

In 2023/24 there were a total of 1,196 occurrences recorded with a fraud code on our crime and incident recording system (Niche RMS).

We estimate it would take approximately 2-3 minutes to interrogate each occurrence to establish if they were relevant to your request.

We therefore estimate it would take in excess of 49 hours to retrieve this information for the financial year 2023/34 alone.

It is estimated that the cost of providing you with the information is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of locating and retrieving the information exceeds the "appropriate level" as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.

In the case of the police service, the appropriate limit is £450 which has been calculated to equate to a total of 18 hours of work.

If any part of the request exceeds the fees limit then Section 12 applies to the whole request.

In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, this letter acts as a refusal notice.

Excess cost removes the forces obligation under the Freedom of Information Act, however under Section 16 – Duty to provide advice and assistance, an authority is required to offer an applicant the opportunity to redefine their request within the cost limit. Unfortunately, due to the way in which data is recorded, we can see no feasible way in which you could refine your request.

Please note you may wish to submit your request to Action Fraud as they may hold information to assist with your request.