The proceeds of crime in England and Wales 2023 to 2024
Published 15 September 2026
Applies to England and Wales
© Crown copyright 2026
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Acknowledgments
This report and analysis was authored and conducted by Jack Pickering, Joseph Dowse, Ellen James, Sophie Laycock and Eliza Gregory.
The authors would like to thank all those who contributed to the development and analytical quality assurance of this work, as well as those who provided peer review of the final report.
Executive summary
Money laundering is defined in the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) as the process by which the proceeds of crime are converted into assets which appear legitimate so they can be retained or recycled into further criminality (CPS, 2024). There is no single, robust estimate of the total scale and cost of money laundering, or the proceeds of crime in the UK. The covert nature of money laundering, the range of methods used to launder proceeds from both inside and outside the UK and significant data limitations make accurate measurement inherently challenging. While several estimates and models have been developed, these are often constrained by limited evidence or are only applicable in certain contexts.
This report represents a first step towards addressing this evidence gap. Drawing on Home Office publications, academic evidence and new analytical modelling, Chapter 2 estimates the proceeds of certain profit-driven offences committed in England and Wales in the year ending March 2024. The identified proceeds of crime are estimated to be at least £21.9 billion, although the total amount remains unknown. In line with the POCA definition of money laundering, the report assumes that all proceeds of crime are laundered.
Chapter 2 of this report also presents a discussion of the primary allocation of these laundered proceeds, modelling the breakdown between reinvestment in crime and consumption. It is conservatively estimated that between £6.1 billion and £8.9 billion is reinvested in crime, while £13 billion to £15.8 billion is spent on consumption. The allocation of laundered proceeds between reinvestment in future crime and consumption is assumed to move inversely – higher reinvestment implies lower consumption. As such, upper-bound estimates should not be summed together to produce an upper-bound estimate for the total proceeds of crime.
Chapter 3 of the report provides a qualitative assessment of the economic and social harms associated with money laundering across 3 main cost areas:
- costs in anticipation of crime
- costs as a consequence of crime
- costs in response to crime
This approach aligns with the traditional Home Office framework for assessing the social and economic costs of crime (Home Office, 2019; Home Office, 2026c).
Importantly, this report reflects a first step in estimating the proceeds of crime in England and Wales and should be viewed as an exploratory, iterative piece of work. Publication of the report aims to inform further research on estimating the proceeds of crime, as well as the total scale and cost of money laundering in the UK – historically a large evidence gap. The report also forms part of previous cross-government public commitments in Economic Crime Plan 2 (ECP2) to transparently improve data on money laundering. These commitments continue as part of the new Anti-Money Laundering and Asset Recovery (AMLAR) Strategy and the forthcoming Economic Crime Plan 2026 to 2029. Further detail to the aspirations for future analytical work in this space are addressed in Chapter 4 of the report.
1. Introduction
1.1 Scope
1.1.1 Geographical coverage and timeframe
This report estimates the proceeds of profit-driven crime generated in England and Wales in the year ending March 2024 that are laundered and subsequently spent domestically or abroad. It excludes overseas proceeds of crime, owing to a lack of available data. By focusing on England and Wales, this approach maintains consistency with other analytical reports, while reflecting the Home Office’s core responsibilities in the policing landscape.
1.1.2 Crimes in scope
Estimates of the proceeds of crime presented in this report utilise accepted Home Office analysis on the scale of criminal market(s), estimated in terms of revenue generated. The report focuses on profit-driven crime, for which money laundering is assumed to be an important enabler – without which profits could not be spent. While other crimes may generate illicit proceeds, financial gain is not their primary motive (for example, child sexual abuse) and they fall outside the scope of this analysis.
Specifically, the report covers the following crime types:
- domestic and commercial robbery
- domestic and commercial burglary
- theft of vehicles (against individuals and businesses)
- theft from vehicles (against individuals and businesses)
- commercial theft
- theft from a person
- cybercrime against individuals
- fraud (against individuals and businesses)
- tobacco smuggling, counterfeit currency
- waste crime and drug supply
The report does not include crimes for which no official scale estimates are available, or where such estimates are unsuitable or have not been quality assured by the Home Office.
Crime types excluded from this analysis include:
- fraud against the public sector
- cybercrime against businesses
- corruption
- tax and sanctions evasion
Indicative estimates exist for some of these excluded crime types – for example, the National Audit Office estimate that fraud and error cost the taxpayer between £55 billion and £81 billion in the year ending March 2024, with tax evasion estimated to have cost £5.5 billion in lost revenue (National Audit Office, 2024). However, as the methodologies underpinning these estimates are not aligned with the approach used in this report, they have not been incorporated into the proceeds of crime estimate.
For other crime types for which quantified scale estimates are unavailable, a qualitative discussion of their potential scale is presented. As such, headline figures presented in this report represent a lower bound estimate of the total proceeds of crime.
1.2 How to use the proceeds of crime in England and Wales estimate
The identified proceeds of profit-driven crime in England and Wales in the year ending March 2024 are estimated to be at least £21.9 billion. However, owing to several omissions of crime types and geographical coverage, the total amount, including unidentified proceeds, remains unknown.
This figure represents a subset of the total scale of money laundering in the UK. It should not be directly compared or viewed as a replacement to existing estimates of the total scale of money laundering in the UK. Notably the National Crime Agency (NCA) assess that it is a realistic possibility that £100 billion is laundered through (including proceeds from abroad) and within the UK or UK registered corporate structures each year. It is therefore suggested that both the NCA’s assessment and this estimate could be used in tandem, acknowledging that one is a subset of another and both figures are generated in different ways.
This estimate should not be used as a measure of anti-money laundering intervention performance, as it reflects underlying proceeds from criminal activity rather than indicators of the effectiveness of specific interventions. Nor should it be interpreted as an annual estimate of recoverable assets in England and Wales. Criminal proceeds may have been spent, concealed or otherwise placed beyond the reach of recovery action, so only a proportion will be identifiable, traceable and available for recovery at any given time.
2. Estimating the total proceeds of crime
- 2.1 Estimating annual proceeds of crime from the ‘Economic and social cost of crime’ report
- 2.2 Estimating annual proceeds of crime from the ‘Economic and social cost of fraud’ report
- 2.3 Estimating annual proceeds of serious and organised crime types
- 2.4 Estimating annual proceeds of crime from wastewater analysis
- 2.5 Total identified proceeds of crime
- 2.6 Discussion of the end uses of laundered proceeds
There is no single figure for the total scale and cost of money laundering, and the proceeds of crime, that gives a clear, unambiguous and indisputable estimate for a UK context. The hidden nature of money laundering, the variety of methods used to launder proceeds from both inside and outside the UK and a lack of adequate data makes accurate measurement extremely difficult. While several estimates and models have been proposed, they typically lack a robust evidence base or are limited in their applicability (including commonly quoted estimates, such as 2% to 5% of GDP (IMF, 1998), or 2.7% of GDP (UNODC, 2011)). The NCA has produced assessments on the scale of money laundering in the UK based on professional judgment and operational intelligence (NCA, 2021). It assesses that it is a realistic possibility that over £100 billion is laundered through and within the UK or UK-registered corporate structures each year, but recognises that there are inherent challenges to judging this accurately.
Evidence from the Economic Crime Survey 2024 (ECS) suggests that around 2% of businesses with employees experienced known or suspected money laundering incidents in the 12 months preceding the survey, equating to around 33,500 businesses. These businesses experienced an average of 7 incidents each, amounting to approximately 225,000 incidents across all businesses with employees (Home Office, 2025). The prevalence rate of 2% made money laundering a very rare crime; however, it is important to note that money laundering incidents recorded within this survey only cover those that businesses could identify – challenging due to money laundering’s hidden nature – and willing to disclose.
This chapter estimates the proceeds of certain profit-driven crime committed in England and Wales in the year ending March 2024, based on Home Office estimates of the value of property stolen and scale of criminal market(s). Inputs are taken directly from the ‘Economic and social cost of fraud’ report (Home Office, 2026b), Wastewater Analysis: measuring illicit drug consumption report (Home Office, 2026a) and Home Office analysis on the scale of cannabis consumption.
Other inputs are informed by evidence from the ‘Economic and social cost of crime’ (ESCC) report and internal modelling on the scale of serious and organised crime (SOC) types.
The methodology used to estimate the proceeds of crime for each of these reports is discussed in turn, with total figures then presented. Each report follows different methodologies, covers different time periods, jurisdictions, and has its own limitations in terms of scope and data quality. While care has been taken to align the reports as best as possible (ensuring they are all in the year ending March 2024 prices and cover England and Wales where feasible), this analysis should be caveated as the reports were not designed to be directly summed and compared. Further details of these limitations are outlined within each sub-section below, and headline figures are summarised in Table 1 below.
Table 1: Identified proceeds of crime in the year ending March 2024 in England and Wales, by data source and crime type
| Data source | Crime type | Total identified proceeds of crime (billions) |
|---|---|---|
| Economic and Social Cost of Crime (ESCC) | Domestic robbery | £0.1 |
| Commercial robbery | £0.0 | |
| Domestic burglary | £0.2 | |
| Commercial burglary | £0.1 | |
| Theft of vehicles (against individuals) | £0.5 | |
| Theft of vehicles (against businesses) | £0.1 | |
| Theft from vehicles (against individuals) | £0.1 | |
| Theft from vehicles (against businesses) | £0.0 | |
| Commercial theft | £1.5 | |
| Theft from the person | £0.1 | |
| Cybercrime against individuals | £0.1 | |
| Total | £2.8 | |
| Scale of serious and organised crime related crime types | Tobacco smuggling | £1.2 |
| Counterfeit currency | £0.0 | |
| Waste crime | £1.0 | |
| Total | £2.2 | |
| Cost of fraud | Individual fraud | £2.1 |
| Fraud against business | £0.5 | |
| Total | £2.6 | |
| Drug supply | Wastewater analysis | £12.0 |
| Cannabis | £2.3 | |
| Total | £14.3 | |
| Total | £21.9 |
Notes:
- Figures are presented in billions and rounded to one decimal place. As a result, totals may not sum exactly, and values shown as £0.0 indicate amounts below £50 million rather than zero.
2.1 Estimating annual proceeds of crime from the ‘Economic and social cost of crime’ report
Crime types covered: Domestic and commercial robbery, domestic and commercial burglary, theft of vehicles (against individuals and businesses), theft from vehicles (against individuals and businesses), commercial theft, theft from a person and cybercrime against individuals (relates to offences under the Computer Misuse Act, namely computer viruses and unauthorised access to personal information – including hacking).
The annual proceeds of crime for crime types covered within the Economic and social cost of crime (ESCC) 2019 to 2020 report (Home Office, 2026c) are estimated by multiplying the value of property stolen for crimes against individuals and businesses by the volume of each crime type. Adjustments are made to remove the proportion of ESCC offences that are drug-related and adjust the value of property stolen to more accurately reflect the resale value.
The approach relies on both the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and the Commercial Victimisation Survey (CVS). Both reports have notable limitations; neither report provides complete counts of crime, and there are exclusions from both series. As such, under or over reporting of crime volumes will impact estimates of the proceeds of crime. A summary of the 4-step methodological approach is presented below.
2.1.1 Step 1: Estimating the mean value of property stolen across crime types
For crimes against individuals, estimates of the value of property stolen are taken from the year ending March 2024 CSEW (ONS, 2024) data, except cybercrime where year ending March 2020 values are used and up-rated to 2024 prices using GDP deflators. This reflects that the Office for National Statistics did not consider the year ending March 2024 estimates of financial losses from cybercrime sufficiently robust due to reduced base sizes following the transition to a face-to-face survey design; the most recent data available for publication with reliable base sizes remains year ending March 2020. The approach for generating financial losses from cybercrime is outlined in the Economic and Social Costs of Crime 2019 to 2020.
For crimes against businesses, estimates of the value of property stolen by crime type and sector are taken from the CVS (Home Office, 2024a), which surveys a few business sectors per year and ran annually between 2012 and 2018 before being reintroduced in 2021. Surveys post reintroduction in 2021 do not report information on financial losses, required for this analysis, and, as such, data from the 2012 to 2018 CVS is used.
From 2012 to 2018, the CVS only covered 3 or 4 industrial sectors each year, with 9 out of the 21 major standard industrial classification sectors represented. For each sector, data is taken from the most recent CVS available, consistent with the ESCC report. Seven sectors are included in this analysis, with full details of the sectors included and their corresponding CVS reference years set out in Table A1 in the Annex. As all values pre-date the year ending March 2024, estimates are up-rated for inflation and weighted by incident volumes to produce a single unit cost per crime type estimate.
Consistent with the ESCC report, the mean value of property stolen is used, reflecting the full scale of property stolen.
2.1.2 Step 2: Remove proportion of ESCC offences that are drug-related
It is likely that many profit-driven offences are committed to fund drug use (Home Office, 2020). To avoid double counting with estimates for the scale of the drug market (discussed in Section 2.4 ‘Estimating annual proceeds of crime from wastewater analysis’), estimated volumes of ESCC crimes are adjusted to account for the proportion of offences assumed to be drug-related, based on proportions applied in the ‘Understanding organised crime’ (UOC) report (Home Office, 2013, Table A1.10; Home Office, 2019, Table 25).
2.1.3 Step 3: Adjust value of property stolen to reflect resale value
Estimates of the mean value of property stolen, obtained in Step 1, are unlikely to reflect the value a criminal could sell these stolen goods at. An adjustment is therefore made to consider the resale value of property stolen. Using Office for National Statistics (ONS) microdata (ONS, 2025), an assumption is first applied to the proportion of stolen property which is cash and assumed to withhold its entire value.
For non-cash stolen items, available literature (Stevenson and others, 2001; Clare and others, 2025) provides estimates for the resale value of stolen goods. These papers suggest the resale value typically lies in a range of 25% to 43% of the original market price, with a central estimate of 34%. These findings are consistent with estimates provided in the 2019 UOC report (Home Office, 2019), where the average street value of stolen goods is slightly less than one-third of the legitimate value of the goods. Therefore, the percentages are applied to the value of non-cash stolen goods to give a more accurate estimate of what they could be sold for.
2.1.4 Step 4: Multiply adjusted mean value of property stolen by the volume of crime
Finally, the adjusted mean value of property stolen is multiplied by the volume of each crime type.
For crimes against individuals, volumes are taken from the year ending March 2024 CSEW, while 2023 CVS data are used for crimes against businesses. Measures of prevalence and frequency of crime from 2023 CVS data are combined to estimate the volume of crimes for the sectors in scope of the ESCC value of property stolen unit cost. For commercial burglary and commercial robbery, where derived CVS volume estimates seemed inconceivably high, the year ending March 2024 police recorded crime data are used, as it is assumed to provide a more representative measure of these crime volumes.
2.1.5 Proceeds of crime from ESCC crime types
For crime types covered in the ESCC report, crimes against individuals generate an estimated £1 billion in proceeds, while crimes against businesses generate £1.8 billion. Summing these gives identified proceeds for crime types covered in the ESCC report of £2.8 billion.
The limitations in estimating the proceeds for ESCC crimes are:
- a reliance on proxy data for the proportion of stolen property that is cash for some crime types due to incomplete ONS coverage (for example, an average of burglary and theft from the person is used to proxy for robbery)
- using incident counts of cash theft rather than total cash value
- assuming all stolen goods are resold, which overlooks items used for other criminal purposes (for instance, stolen vehicles used to facilitate other criminal activities) (Interpol, n.d.)
2.2 Estimating annual proceeds of crime from the ‘Economic and social cost of fraud’ report
Crime types covered: Individual fraud and fraud against business.
The proceeds of crime from fraud are estimated by multiplying the average financial loss for a fraud incident by the volume of fraud, adjusted to exclude the drug-related proportion.
Total individual financial loss is calculated using CSEW financial loss data for the year ending March 2024. The CSEW data categorises fraud-related losses into bands according to the monetary value lost. The proportion of fraud incidents within each band is multiplied by the overall volume of fraud to estimate the number of fraud incidents per band. These figures are then multiplied by the midpoint value of each respective band (for example, £74.50 in the £50 to £99 band) and summed to calculate the total loss. For the highest band (£40,000 and over), a loss of £60,000 was selected as this aligned with the increase in loss per incident between bands.
This approach estimates the total expected financial loss of fraud against individuals – before excluding drug-related offending – to be around £3.2 billion in the year ending March 2024. While financial loss from fraud against individuals may be an underestimate, this approach accounts for the wide variation in fraud losses by using a robust estimate that reflects how case volumes differ by loss size, avoiding reporting bias.
Total business financial loss is calculated using the results from the 2024 Economic Crime Survey (ECS), estimating that £507.4 million was lost to fraudsters by businesses in the 12 months prior to the survey. However, this is likely to be an underestimate of the total financial loss to businesses due to the exclusion of zero employee businesses – accounting for 75% of businesses but only 7.5% of turnover (DBT, 2025) – because of sampling reasons and the survey’s limitations in capturing rare, high-impact fraud incidents (Home Office, 2025). Nevertheless, the ECS is still assumed to represent the best available evidence on financial loss experienced by businesses from fraud-related incidents.
To calculate the average financial loss, the total loss for individuals and businesses, respectively, is divided by the total number of estimated fraud incidences. This results in an average loss of £1,008 to individuals and £485 to businesses. Average financial losses are multiplied by the volume of fraud against individuals (using CSEW) and businesses (using ECS), while excluding the estimated 34% of fraud-related crime that is drug-motivated (to avoid double counting). Fraud-based crimes are assumed to hold 100% of their value and therefore no adjustment is applied to account for their resale value.
2.2.1 Proceeds of crime from fraud
The identified proceeds of crime from fraud are estimated to be £2.6 billion in the year ending March 2024. This figure should not be confused with the economic and social cost of fraud - estimated to be £14.4 billion in the year ending March 2024 (Home Office, 2026b) - as it does not consider costs beyond the proceeds of crime, expressed in terms of revenue gained by criminals.
2.3 Estimating annual proceeds of serious and organised crime types
Crime types covered: Tobacco smuggling, counterfeit currency, waste crime, organised immigration crime, intellectual property (IP) infringement, wildlife crime and cybercrime against business.
Updated (year ending March 2024) scale estimates for several serious and organised crime (SOC) crime types are summarised below. Where it has not been possible to produce quantified scale estimates (organised immigration crime, IP infringement, wildlife crime and cybercrime against businesses), a qualitative discussion of their potential scale is presented.
Certain SOC crime types are excluded from this analysis as they are assumed to double count with offences captured in the ESCC report (organised acquisitive crime, road freight crime, vehicle crime, cybercrime against individuals, plant theft and metal theft) and cost of fraud. Other offences are likely to be purchased using the proceeds of crime (such as modern slavery and firearms supply), so are unlikely to represent a transfer from the licit to illicit markets.
A summary of quantified and qualitative scale estimates for SOC crime types is outlined below.
2.3.1 Tobacco smuggling
The scale of tobacco smuggling is estimated by multiplying the volume of smuggled cigarettes and hand-rolled tobacco in the year ending March 2024 by an estimate of their respective legal price. Volume data comes from HMRC’s ‘Measuring Tax Gaps’ for the year ending March 2024 (HMRC, 2025) and pricing data for cigarettes is provided by HMRC based on test purchases carried out by Trading Standards. Equal weighting has been assumed across the 3 types of smuggled cigarettes (cheap whites, counterfeit product and non-UK duty paid/genuine product).
For hand-rolled tobacco, 2016 Trading Standards pricing data have been up-rated using the same proportion of price change for smuggled cigarettes from 2016 to the year ending March 2024 (71%). Population multipliers are used to adjust the scale from the UK to capture England and Wales only.
The scale of identified tobacco smuggling in England and Wales in the year ending March 2024 is estimated to be £1.2 billion.
2.3.2 Counterfeit currency
The scale of counterfeit currency is estimated by applying the same methodology as in ‘Understanding organised crime’ (Home Office, 2019); estimates are based on the value of banknotes taken out of circulation. This data is collected by the Bank of England and covers England and Wales only. This is only a partial estimate of the scale of organised counterfeit currency, as it only accounts for detected activity, so will underestimate the total value of counterfeit currency in circulation. Further, it should be noted that the value of banknotes does not equate to the proceeds obtained through their integration into the legitimate economy and, as such, will not be a perfect proxy for the proceeds from counterfeit currency.
The scale of detected counterfeit currency in England and Wales in the year ending March 2024 is estimated to be £2 million.
2.3.3 Environmental crime
Environmental crime encompasses a range of illegal activity including illegal wildlife trade, forestry crime, illegal fishing, illegal mining and mineral extraction, waste trafficking and pollution crimes, white-collar and corporate environmental crime, and environmental crime linked to conflict and terrorism financing.
It has not been possible to estimate the total scale of environmental crime owing to a lack of available data. This report estimates the scale of waste crime and qualitatively discusses the scale of wildlife crime.
Waste crime
The scale of waste crime is estimated using a top-down approach, starting with the market size of the UK waste management sector for 2023 in USD (2025 prices) (Next Move Strategy Consulting, 2025). This was up-rated based on forecast growth rates to find the value for the year ending March 2024 and then converted to GBP based on the HMRC-approved exchange rate for January 2023. GDP deflators were then applied to convert the figure into the year ending March 2024 prices. The adjusted figure is then multiplied by the proportion of waste assumed to be illegally managed (18.3% in the year ending March 2024), based on findings from the 2023 and 2025 National Waste Crime Survey (Environment Agency, 2025). Population multipliers are used to adjust the scale from the UK to capture England and Wales only.
The scale of identified waste crime in England and Wales in the year ending March 2024 is estimated to be £1 billion.
Wildlife crime
Most wildlife crimes are not notifiable, as police forces are not required to report them to the Home Office, meaning no national statistics are available and recording is inconsistent. As such, it is difficult to assess the scale of wildlife crime in England and Wales. The 2024 Wildlife and Countryside Link Report (IFM, 2024) draws data from various sources including charities and non-governmental environmental organisations to estimate 4,735 recorded instances of wildlife crime across England and Wales, though this number is likely to be a significant underestimate given the lack of notification requirements.
It is challenging for law enforcement to identify and disrupt illegal trade in endangered species because illegal activities can be obfuscated by legitimate business operations. Misdeclarations on trade documents to disguise wildlife trafficking compound the issue. Globally, the illegal wildlife trade (IWT) is recognised as the fourth largest illegal trade after arms, drugs and people smuggling. A joint UN Environment Programme, UNEP-INTERPOL (2016) report estimated the global illegal wildlife trade to be worth between $7 to $23 billion per year (UNEP and INTERPOL, 2016). Further analysis from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC, 2024) indicates that between 2015 and 2021, there were seizures of around 4,000 plant and animal species across 162 countries, of which approximately 3,250 of these were listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, that is, acknowledged as an endangered species (UNODC, 2024).
2.3.4 Organised immigration crime (OIC)
Irregular migrants travel to the UK for various reasons, including but not limited to claiming asylum and working illegally. Of the methods of irregular migration, some of these are supported by OIC gangs. These gangs facilitate arrival by supplying forged documentation or providing physical passage in clandestine entry, such as small boats or concealed entries. The revenue these organised criminal gangs make from immigration crime represents the scale.
The scale of OIC is difficult to quantify for several reasons. The overall size of the market is unknown; in the year ending March 2024, there were 38,546 irregular arrivals, but this figure is not exhaustive as some arrivals may go undetected (Home Office, 2024c).
There is uncertainty regarding the exact number of clandestine arrivals, limited data on fees paid by irregular migrants to OICs and methodological updates in the Home Office’s approach to monetising OIC. Given the current position of the underlying evidence and inputs, quantified scale estimates are not presented in this report.
2.3.5 Intellectual property (IP) infringement
IP rights are infringed when a product, creation or invention protected by IP laws is exploited, copied or otherwise used without the permission or consent of the person who owns those rights or their representative. Examples of infringement include unauthorised use of a technology protected by a patent, copying a film and making it available online, or selling counterfeit goods such as medicines or clothing. These counterfeits are unauthorised copies of physical goods that intentionally imitate branded items, typically violating trademarks, design rights and sometimes patents.
Counterfeit goods and piracy remain substantial challenges in the UK. According to the 2024 Online Copyright Infringement Tracker survey, 29% of UK residents aged 12 and over had recently accessed online content that infringed IP rights (IPO, 2025a), equating to 17.2 million people when applied to the UK population. Other research by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) in 2023 indicated that about 15% of UK respondents aged 18 and over purchased counterfeit goods at least occasionally (IPO, 2025b), equivalent to a UK population estimate of approximately 8.2 million. This likely underestimates the true scale, as surveys do not capture all product categories and will not detect consumers who never discover that an item is counterfeit. Furthermore, it will not capture infringement by businesses, such as installing pirated software for commercial use.
The IPO is developing improved methods to estimate the scale and impact of IP infringement in the UK, aiming to enhance previous estimates presented in the ‘Understanding organised crime’ report (Home Office, 2019).
2.3.6 Cybercrime against businesses (including ransomware)
The 2025 to 2026 Cyber Security Breaches Survey (CSBS) estimates the number of cyber attacks and breaches experienced by businesses that meet the definition of a cybercrime – incidents where a criminal offence (in line with the Home Office Counting Rules) has occurred, not just a technical breach. This includes ransomware, a type of malicious software that blocks access to systems or data, steals information, and demands a ransom to restore access or prevent data leaks. The estimated number of businesses that have experienced at least one cybercrime in the last 12 months of the survey is 267,000. These cybercrimes are broken down by type: phishing attacks were the most common (93%), followed by hacking (8%) and ransomware (3%) (DSIT, 2026).
While the CSBS provides insight into the impact and cost of cyber incidents, the financial estimates are not suitable to produce estimates of the proceeds of crime (proxied by ransomware payments). This is due to issues stemming from the survey’s self-reported nature, limited data collection by businesses, few respondents who paid a ransom and could provide cost estimates, and the likelihood that the survey misses the few organisations facing extreme ransomware costs.
2.3.7 Proceeds of crime from SOC crime types
The identified and quantified proceeds from SOC crime types are estimated to be £2.2 billion in the year ending March 2024
2.4 Estimating annual proceeds of crime from wastewater analysis
Area of analysis: Drug supply.
The Home Office’s Wastewater Analysis for Narcotics (WAND) programme (Home Office, 2026a) uses samples from 50 wastewater treatment plants across England and Scotland (covering 28% of England’s population and 46% of Scotland’s population) to calculate the quantity consumed of several key drug types (cocaine, heroin, ketamine, MDMA, amphetamine and methamphetamine). Wastewater analysis is regarded as providing the most reliable estimates of the drug market’s scale for the period covered by this report. Unlike previous studies and surveys, it does not depend on self-reported drug use and covers groups typically omitted, such as the homeless population (ACMD, 2019).
As wastewater analysis estimates how much of a pure substance is consumed, consumption estimates are adjusted by retail purity estimates sourced from the National Crime Agency (NCA). The report then applies NCA estimates of the street (retail) values of individual drugs to calculate the scale of the drug market for the 6 drug types covered. These findings are summarised in Table 2 below.
The analysis covers August 2024 to July 2025 in England only, as it is not considered appropriate to uplift the consumption estimate to include Wales due to the new and experimental nature of the analytical method used for the national estimates. An implicit assumption is made that the consumption data from August 2024 to July 2025 reflects the level of drug consumption in England in the year ending March 2024. The wide confidence intervals mainly reflect uncertainty in drug excretion rates and the extrapolation needed to scale wastewater signals to national consumption estimates. However, they are consistent with the margins of uncertainty reported in similar international studies.
Table 2: National estimated consumption and market value for the latest WAND programme (August 2024 to July 2025)
| Drug | Consumption (kilograms) | Market Value (billions) |
|---|---|---|
| Cocaine | 123,000 (± 39,400) | £9.8 (± £3.2) |
| Heroin | 6,800 (± 6,100) | £0.3 (± £0.3) |
| Ketamine | 30,800 (± 26,400) | £0.9 (± £0.8) |
| MDMA | 9,900 (± 6,700) | £0.3 (± £0.2) |
| Amphetamine | 46,700 (± 22,200) | £0.5 (± £0.2) |
| Methamphetamine | 2,300 (± 1,700) | £0.2 (± £0.1) |
| Total | 219,500 (± 102,500) | £12.0 (± £4.9) |
Notes:
- Figures may not sum due to rounding.
A notable omission from the wastewater analysis is that it does not test for cannabis due to complexities in the sampling method. To address this, the Home Office has produced separate analysis on the scale of cannabis consumption in the year ending March 2024 in England and Wales.
The approach estimates the number of cannabis users in England and Wales for the year ending March 2024 by combining data sources covering adult and child users in the community, those in treatment, and additional high-frequency users who may be excluded from datasets. It is estimated that there were approximately 2.7 million cannabis users in England and Wales in the year ending March 2024. This was then combined with data on the frequency of use to produce estimates of total cannabis use days, estimated at around 205 million. These figures, combined with average cannabis consumption per day – 0.5g per day of use for non-frequent users and 1.2g per day of use for frequent users (based on Freeman and Winstock, 2015; Hindocha and others, 2016; Craft and others, 2019; Kumar and others, 2020; Craft and others, 2021) – were used to estimate total consumption. Total expenditure was estimated by multiplying total consumption by an estimate of street (retail) price of £10 per gram, based on estimates provided by the NCA.
The central limitation of this approach is that it relies primarily on survey data, which is widely understood to be underestimates of drug consumption, due to both under-reporting of use by survey respondents and key drug-using cohorts missing from the survey. Changing the survey used from the CSEW to the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS), a health-based survey assessing drugs use and dependence in adult users, results in an estimate of £3.6 billion, showing the uncertainty in this estimate. The lower CSEW estimate is used due to its official statistics accreditation. Therefore, the estimate of cannabis consumption is acknowledged to be an underestimate.
The scale of cannabis consumption in England and Wales in the year ending March 2024 is estimated to be £2.3 billion.
2.4.1 Proceeds of crime from drug supply
Summing the scale of cannabis consumption figures with estimates provided by wastewater analysis for the scale of 6 drug types suggests a total scale of drug consumption in the year ending March 2024 of £14.3 billion. It is worth noting that the cannabis estimate covers England and Wales, while the estimate for other drugs (from wastewater analysis) covers England only.
2.5 Total identified proceeds of crime
Combining estimates across published Home Office reports and internal analytical modelling, the identified proceeds of crime generated in England and Wales in the year ending March 2024 are estimated to be at least £21.9 billion. This figure is driven by proceeds from drugs followed by fraud (against individuals and businesses) as seen in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1: Identified proceeds of crime in the year ending March 2024 in England and Wales, by crime area
| Crime area | Total identified proceeds of crime (billions) |
|---|---|
| Drug supply | £14.3 |
| Fraud (against individuals and businesses) | £2.6 |
| Theft/Robbery (against businesses) | £1.8 |
| Illicit tobacco | £1.2 |
| Waste crime | £1.0 |
| Theft/Robbery (against individuals) | £0.9 |
| Cybercrime against individuals | £0.1 |
| Counterfeit currency | £0.0 |
| Total | £21.9 |
Notes:
- Figures are presented in billions and rounded to one decimal place. As a result, totals may not sum exactly and values shown as £0.0 indicate amounts below £50 million rather than zero.
- Proceeds from theft-related offences are presented separately for crimes against individuals and businesses.
- Fraud is shown as a combined estimate covering both individuals and businesses.
2.6 Discussion of the end uses of laundered proceeds
In line with the POCA definition of money laundering (CPS, 2024), the report assumes that all proceeds are laundered. A discussion of the end uses of laundered proceeds allows for a nuanced understanding of how criminal profits circulate through the economy. There is currently insufficient evidence to inform a robust estimate of the expenditure of laundered proceeds. However, exploratory analysis has been conducted that provides an indicative overview of expenditure patterns, which should be viewed as a basis for discussion rather than a definitive figure.
Existing literature suggests the proceeds of crime are predominantly spent on everyday expenses, investments in assets (primarily real estate) or reinvested back into crime (Europol, 2024; McGuire, 2018). While these categories are not mutually exclusive – for instance, expenditure in real estate can serve both the primary needs of the offender and the operational needs of criminal organisations – this report considers 2 distinct spending categories – ‘reinvestment in crime’ and ‘consumption’. This breakdown is imperfect and represents a broad estimation at best. In this report, consumption refers to all spending, including real estate investment, luxury goods, and daily expenses like food and rent. It also covers commissions paid to money laundering networks and costs for establishing legitimate businesses – which may or may not be used to launder further funds – since these are not considered recurring investments that affect future crime rates.
To consider the expenditure of proceeds on ‘reinvestment’ versus ‘consumption’, profit-driven crime types are first split depending on their perceived level of investment by criminal actors to facilitate them. Crimes are split between drugs and SOC offences, and ESCC and fraud crimes.
Further, distinguishing crime types in this manner requires an assumption that the proceeds are reinvested into the same crime type as opposed to other crime. For example, proceeds from robbery are reinvested to fund future robbery as opposed to wider organised crime group (OCG) activity. This is a simplification as OCGs commonly operate across multiple criminal markets, meaning funds from one criminal activity supports other criminal activities. As such, estimates presented below should be used as a basis for discussion only.
2.6.1 Drugs and SOC offences
For drugs and SOC offences, the proportion of laundered proceeds that may be reinvested into future crime is modelled by estimating the amount of reinvestment required to sustain the year ending March 2024 scale of the market. This assumes the underlying scale of drug and SOC offences will remain constant and will only be facilitated by the proceeds of crimes generated from predicate offences that have occurred in the year ending March 2024 in England and Wales. As such, this approach could lead to an over or underestimation of the proportion of proceeds reinvested, depending on a) the level of crime funded by money outside of existing proceeds and b) future growth or decline in the scale of these criminal markets.
The potential range of reinvestment required to generate current proceeds of crime is proxied using the difference between wholesale and street (retail) purity-adjusted prices for powder cocaine, heroin and cannabis, weighted for consumption, which is estimated to be between 2.3 and 3.0, with 2.8 in the central scenario (based on Home Office estimates). This proxy solely captures the potential reinvestment needed for drug supply and therefore will not be a perfect proxy for all SOC offences where reinvestment levels are likely to differ.
Under this approach, £6 billion (£5.1 billion on drugs and £0.8 billion on SOC offences) must be spent to generate (in a central scenario) the estimated £16.5 billion of proceeds of crime across drugs and SOC offences. This implies the remaining £10.5 billion is spent on consumption, corresponding to 36% reinvested into crime and 64% spent on consumption. These proposed ratios are slightly higher than estimates presented in the available literature, with 2 papers suggesting 21% (UNODC, 2011) and 26% (Levi, 2015) of criminal proceeds are typically reinvested in crime.
2.6.2 ESCC and fraud offences
There is a lack of robust evidence on the proportion of proceeds reinvested into crime for offences covered within the ESCC and Cost of Fraud reports. Crimes like street theft and robbery likely require very minimal reinvestment, while others may require higher reinvestment – though almost certainly at significantly lower rates than drug or SOC offences. To provide a central estimate of ESCC reinvestment, one paper explores how cybercriminals spend their proceeds (McGuire, 2018). This report suggests that roughly 20% of cybercrime revenues are reinvested into further criminal activities – albeit the findings are based on a few interviews (n=100) and are unlikely to accurately represent the reinvestment habits of all ESCC-related crimes.
In the absence of robust data, a central reinvestment rate of 20% is applied, informed by the available evidence on cybercrime, with a lower bound of 10% and an upper bound of 30%. As there remains considerable uncertainty around this assumption, sensitivity analysis is undertaken and included in Table A6 of the Annex, to test a range of percentages and their resultant impact on the proportion of proceeds reinvested for ESCC and fraud crime types.
Under the central scenario, £0.5 billion to £1.6 billion is assumed to be reinvested in crime, with a central estimate of £1.1 billion. The remaining £3.8 billion to £4.8 billion in proceeds for ESCC and fraud offences, with a central estimate of £4.3 billion are assumed to be spent on consumption.
3. Developing a unit cost estimate and harms narrative
This chapter aims to briefly explore, in qualitative terms, the social and economic costs that are associated with money laundering. For consistency, estimates follow standard Home Office methodology, splitting costs into ‘Anticipation, Consequence and Response’. This is with the future purpose of developing a fuller unit cost for the impact of a single money laundering offence, in line with other ‘Cost of’ reports like the cost of fraud. Developing this understanding of the wider costs of money laundering to the economy and society is important in informing future policy decisions, providing the basis of value for money assessments.
A fundamental assumption is made in this report that criminals are motivated by profit (Hayes, 1999; Brookman and others, 2007; Knisley and Lin, 2023; Li, 2017), and the existence of money laundering enables criminals to spend the proceeds of their crime. As such, money laundering is a key enabler of profit-driven offences, which have economic and social harms in themselves. While it is assumed that money laundering will have contributed to these harms (by enabling the predicate offence), the proportion of harms from predicate offences that can be attributed to money laundering is currently unknown. Further work to explore the relationship between money laundering and crime would be beneficial, including how much crime would be prevented in the absence of money laundering – supporting monetisation of the direct harms through the lens of predicate offences.
Broader harms, beyond those associated with predicate offences, are set out below.
3.1 Costs in anticipation
Defensive expenditure. For money laundering, this could include the cost of anti-money laundering legislation and regulation that banks and businesses legally comply with, such as the requirement to submit ‘Defence Against Money Laundering’ reports or ‘Suspicious Activity Reports’. Further defensive and detection expenditure, such as regular financial audits, money laundering-related risk assessment processes and/or any digital software to monitor unusual payments, is incurred by firms at notable costs (Home Office, 2025). Digital software, for example, could have a significant cost running into the tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds. Further, prevention of money laundering requires significant time and resources to implement and maintain.
Insurance administration. This could be included within anticipation costs, as is done for other crimes; however, the extent to which insurance would cover against money laundering facilitation is less well understood.
3.2 Costs as a consequence
Future crime facilitated by money laundering. The largest impact of money laundering to society is likely to be the facilitation of future crime, through the investment of laundered proceeds into criminal activities. This has been seen in case studies where criminals have invested in commercial properties and businesses that were then used to facilitate criminal enterprises (Kruisbergen and others, 2014; Steinko, 2012, both cited in Levi and Soudijn, 2020). Therefore, the cost of money laundering could include the harms from future crimes that have not yet happened. This may also have indirect implications for future anticipation and response costs, as additional prevention and enforcement activities could be required.
Distortionary impact on gross value added (GVA). It is consistently claimed in the literature that money laundering distorts investment choices (Capgemini, 2011; UNODC, 2011; Amjad and others, 2021). It is assumed that the sectors laundering money are chosen not because they are the most productive, but because they are the easiest to launder funds through. This means that money, when laundered, is likely not being used as productively as it could be in the economy if it was not laundered. This redirection of funds from high-quality investments to low ones erodes the signalling role of profits (McDowell and Novis, 2001; Quirk, 1996) and can result in economically inefficient resource allocations.
Opportunity cost of criminal activity where the counterfactual is productive activity. Some individuals who undertake money laundering activity would otherwise have been performing productive activity with their time (meaning individuals with professional jobs). The types of illegal activity undertaken by these individuals may include the creation of shell companies, tumbling of cryptocurrency or the facilitation of Informal Value Transfer Systems (IVTS) networks. These networks are used to transfer value to a third party in another location. While legal if HMRC-registered and compliant with Money Laundering Regulations, they are often used for money laundering due to perceived weaker controls.
Analysis could compare the fees commanded by money launderers to what the individual would otherwise have created in the legal economy to estimate the potential opportunity cost. This would require assumptions about the type of work the individual would otherwise undertake as well as the proportion of fees that are pure profit (to account for the risk they are taking) versus the value of their abilities. There may be further direct costs to banks or Companies House to process new accounts of companies or the creation of shell companies.
Artificial price increases. There is evidence (Amjad and others, 2021; Gjoni and others, 2015) that money laundering, as well as distorting investment and consumption habits, can lead to inflation of prices in specific sectors, particularly housing. Purchasing goods is seen as a method to integrate laundered funds into the legitimate economy, with the literature suggesting criminals will pay more than the ‘true’ value of the good to hide their illicit funds. This can result in an artificial increase in prices. These price effects may have distributional consequences; for example, higher house prices may benefit existing owners while reducing affordability for buyers, especially lower income households. Moreover, from an economic efficiency perspective, capital may be diverted towards assets or sectors convenient for laundering rather than those offering the highest productive returns, leading to a misallocation of resources.
Direct physical and emotional harms to individuals from money laundering offences. Unlike other crime types, identifying a ‘victim’ of money laundering is challenging. Some evidence indicates individuals may be coerced, blackmailed or exploited into undertaking money laundering activity, such as money mules (Home Office, 2024b). Exploratory research involving money mules in the UK suggests that the impacts of money muling can be wide-ranging. Survey findings from this research indicate that respondents most commonly reported experiencing anxiety or guilt, having to pay back money that was lost, damage to relationships with family or friends, and people thinking that they are bad with money, although 30% of survey respondents reported feeling no consequences (Home Office, 2026d). Further analysis could look to monetise emotional harms on individuals using a similar method to other Home Office reports (using a quality-adjusted life year method).
Any monetisation would only consider those who were unwillingly coerced into activity, as not all money mules act unwilling/unknowingly. Further, there may be wider knock-on costs of health services and/or counselling for those who have been coerced, as well as the volunteer time to deliver victim services.
Increased aggregate demand. Although criminal investments themselves may be sub-optimal, increased investment (alongside consumption) using laundered funds, may increase aggregate demand within an economy. This may be reflected in short-term increases in measured economic output, such as GDP. Some empirical research suggests that money laundering activity can result in economic growth (Romero, 2020; Unger and others, 2006) or encourage greater foreign investment (Atems and Mullen, 2016), although the literature is mixed with some studies suggesting slightly weaker economic growth (Quirk 1996; Unger and others 2006). Growth impacts are most likely to be positive where a country is a transfer country for criminal money flows, such as tax havens, and may therefore be less relevant to England and Wales. However, the benefits of increased aggregate demand can, of course, be displaced by other adverse economic impacts, as set out above, but should still be acknowledged.
3.3 Costs in response
Police and criminal justice system (CJS) costs. For money laundering, this could include the cost to law enforcement agencies (such as Regional Organised Crime Units (ROCUs) and the NCA) of investigating money laundering offences and disrupting money laundering activity. Response costs can also include those to the CJS incurred during prosecuting money laundering offences. Because those accused are frequently charged in connection with both money laundering and its associated predicate offence (for example, drug supply), distinguishing the specific economic and social costs linked solely to money laundering can be analytically challenging. Further, there are likely to be response costs incurred to business, such as conducting an internal audit, review or investigation; implementing new or additional staff training; taking legal action or wider changes to internal business processes (for example, new policies or controls) (Home Office, 2025).
4. Evidence gaps and areas for future research
This report notes several knowledge gaps that would benefit from further research. Filling these gaps, alongside those published in the defined ‘Areas of Research Interest’ (ARI) report (NECC and Home Office, 2025), would help improve the understanding of the economic crime threat and enable more informed policy and law enforcement responses.
Crime types out of scope. Several crime types are currently out of scope of this report owing to a lack of robust and suitable data. Is there any further evidence or data to determine the scale of crime for fraud against the public sector, corruption, tax evasion and the cost of cybercrime against businesses?
Overseas proceeds. This report only considers the proceeds of crime generated in England and Wales owing to a lack of available data for the value of the proceeds of crime from predicate offences committed overseas. Are there any existing data or ways to estimate the potential value of proceeds of crime committed overseas and impacting England and Wales.
Use of proceeds. This report makes a simplifying assumption that laundered proceeds are spent either to reinvest in crime or on consumption. What other types of expenditure should be considered and how could the scale of these expenditures be robustly assessed?
Laundering-crime link. A notable assumption is made that the existence of money laundering is a key enabler of crime. Is there any way to quantify the link between predicate crimes and money laundering? Specifically, to what extent an increase in the difficulty of laundering illicit criminal proceeds would lead to a reduction in predicate crimes?
Wider impacts. Further evidence to help support gaps in estimating the cost of money laundering. What are the physical and emotional impacts on individuals of being coerced into money laundering? What is the substitution effect of working as a professional money launderer versus other professions? Is it credible to assume these individuals would otherwise be working in a productive industry? Is there any way to estimate the volume of additional crime that is facilitated or funded by laundered criminal proceeds? What proportion of compliance and response costs incurred by the private and public sector can be attributed to money laundering specifically?
Asset recovery. To what extent are the total proceeds of crime recoverable? Are there specific types of criminal expenditure which are easier to recover than others? What are the primary determinants of asset recovery?
Annex
Table A1: Business sectors and corresponding year used from the CVS
| Sector | CVS year used |
|---|---|
| Construction | 2015 |
| Transportation and storage | 2016 |
| Arts, entertainment and recreation | 2017 |
| Manufacturing | 2017 |
| Accommodation and food | 2018 |
| Agriculture, forestry and fishing | 2018 |
| Wholesale and retail | 2018 |
Table A2: Estimated property stolen and proceeds of crime in the year ending March 2024, by individual crime type included in the ESCC
| Robbery | Domestic burglary | Theft of vehicles | Theft from vehicles | Theft from person | Cybercrime (computer misuse, individuals) | Total | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean value of adjusted property stolen (2023 to 2024) | £1, 620 | £2,210 | £17,890 | £430 | £470 | £80 | - | |
| Number of crimes in scope | 103,000 | 173,000 | 78,000 | 321,000 | 240,000 | 1,022,000 | 1,938,000 | |
| Total proceeds of crime (millions) | £82 | £188 | £472 | £71 | £73 | £77 | £962 |
Table A3: Estimated property stolen and proceeds of crime in the year ending March 2024, by crime against business type included in the ESCC
| Commercial robbery | Commercial burglary | Commercial theft | Theft of commercial vehicle | Theft from commercial vehicle | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean value of adjusted property stolen (2023 to 2024) | £1,280 | £3,530 | £450 | £26,700 | £1,800 | - |
| Number of crimes in scope | 7,000 | 68,000 | 6,946,000 | 14,300 | 29,200 | 7,064,000 |
| Total proceeds of crime (millions) | £4 | £117 | £1,533 | £129 | £27 | £1,811 |
Table A4: Estimated financial losses and proceeds of crime generated by fraud in the year ending March 2024
| Crime type | Number of fraud Incidences | Unit cost of financial loss | Number of crimes in scope | Total proceeds (millions) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fraud against individuals | 3,177,000 | £1,010 | 2,090,000 | £2,107 |
| Fraud against business | 1,047,000 | £490 | 1,047,000 | £507 |
Table A5: Allocation of proceeds of crime by reinvestment and consumption
| Scenario | Proceeds (billions) | Proportion on reinvestment | Proportion on consumption | Amount on reinvestment (billions) | Amount on consumption (billions) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| High reinvestment/Low consumption | |||||
| ESCC | £5.4 | 30% | 70% | £1.6 | £3.8 |
| Drugs | £14.3 | 44% | 56% | £6.3 | £8.0 |
| SOC | £2.2 | 44% | 56% | £1.0 | £1.2 |
| Total | £21.9 | 41% | 59% | £8.9 | £13.0 |
| Central reinvestment/Central consumption | |||||
| ESCC | £5.4 | 20% | 80% | £1.1 | £4.3 |
| Drugs | £14.3 | 36% | 64% | £5.1 | £9.1 |
| SOC | £2.2 | 36% | 64% | £0.8 | £1.4 |
| Total | £21.9 | 32% | 68% | £7.0 | £14.8 |
| Low reinvestment/High consumption | |||||
| ESCC | £5.4 | 10% | 90% | £0.5 | £4.8 |
| Drugs | £14.3 | 33% | 67% | £4.8 | £9.5 |
| SOC | £2.2 | 33% | 67% | £0.7 | £1.5 |
| Total | £21.9 | 28% | 72% | £6.1 | £15.8 |
Table A6: Sensitivity analysis of reinvestment assumptions for ESCC crime types and fraud
| Proportion reinvested | Value reinvested (billions) | Proportion spent on consumption | Value of consumption (billions) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0% | £0.0 | 100% | £5.4 |
| 10% | £0.5 | 90% | £4.8 |
| 20% | £1.1 | 80% | £4.3 |
| 30% | £1.6 | 70% | £3.8 |
| 40% | £2.2 | 60% | £3.2 |
| 50% | £2.7 | 50% | £2.7 |
Notes (Tables A1 to A6)
- Figures may not sum due to rounding.
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