Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on June 4, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
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Organized criminals stole £47 million from the UK tax office using phishing tactics. Over 100,000 accounts were accessed, but no customers lost money.
LONDON (Reuters) -Organised criminals stole 47 million pounds ($63.76 million) from Britain's tax office last year by using phishing tactics to access more than 100,000 customer accounts and falsely claim payments from the government.
A notice posted by His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) on the government website on Wednesday disclosed the unauthorised access and said no customers had suffered financial loss.
HMRC deputy chief executive Angela MacDonald, speaking to lawmakers in parliament, said fraudsters masquerading as customers had managed to extract three payments, totalling 47 million pounds.
"That is a lot of money, and it's very unacceptable," she said.
Chief executive John-Paul Marks, speaking alongside MacDonald in what was a scheduled committee hearing on the work of the tax office, said a criminal investigation into the incident had taken place last year leading to some arrests.
"This was organised-crime phishing for identity data outwith of HMRC systems," Marks said.
HMRC said it had written to affected customers, locked down their accounts, deleted login details and removed any incorrect information from tax records. Taxpayers did not need to take any action, it added.
"This was an attempt to claim money from HMRC, not an attempt to take any money from you," the tax office notice said.
In a separate statement emailed to Reuters, HMRC said the incident was not a cyberattack.
"It involved criminals using personal information from phishing activity or data obtained elsewhere to try to claim money from HMRC," the statement said.
($1 = 0.7372 pounds)
(Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar, writing by Sam Tabahriti, editing by William James)
Organised criminals stole 47 million pounds, which is approximately $63.76 million.
The criminals used phishing tactics to access more than 100,000 customer accounts.
According to HMRC, no customers suffered financial loss as a result of the unauthorized access.
HMRC locked down affected accounts, deleted login details, and removed incorrect information from tax records.
HMRC clarified that the incident was not a cyberattack but involved criminals using personal information obtained through phishing.
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