Most of us know a friend or a relative who has lost money to online scammers. What we didn’t know until now are that British citizens are targeted more than any other group. Canadians come second. Why? Because they are relatively wealthy and speak English. www.theguardian.com/money/2025/m...

Today we published the findings from six months of work pouring through a giant leak from Tbilisi in Georgia, where a network calling themselves the ‘skameri’ took the equivalent of $35m in a few years - a third of it from the UK.

We spoke to the victims whose lives they upended, we uncovered the names of those running the scheme, enjoying the cars and watches and holidays funded from stolen savings, and we followed the money trail through the banking system.

Conclusion: Facebook should stop hosting the scam ads that lure in victims, and share the cost of compensation. Banks, including the new generation of digital banks, need to take more steps to combat fraud.