There are various types of identity theft in general such as:

Application fraud – where stolen documents are used to set up new accounts

Account take over - where criminals obtain details of existing bank accounts or credit cards and take over these accounts.

To explain Deceased Identity Fraud more clearly we have put these into two categories, Long Term and Short Term Fraud.

Long Term Fraud – is where a criminal steals the identity of a deceased person. They ‘become’ that person, generally over a period of time and use the identity to commit serious crimes such as terrorism, drug smuggling, people trafficking or money laundering. Long Term Fraud is pre-planned and committed by both organised groups and individuals.

Short Term Fraud – is where a criminal steals the details of a deceased person usually very shortly after death and uses these to obtain loans, credit cards, goods or services. These are generally opportunist crimes of relatively low value so as to remain undetected, but nonetheless are extremely distressing for bereaved relatives.