The application of photography in investigating fraud

ABSTRACT

The impact of fraud on the world economy is significant. As fraud has evolved it has become more organized and increasingly cyber-enabled and committed across borders of law enforcement jurisdictions. The technological demands facing fraud investigators are increasing. Yet, little attention has been given to how forensic photography can help tackle emerging crime types, like fraud. This study reviews literature surrounding forensic photography and provides an up to date and collective narrative. This article focuses on the advancements in photography and how imaging-science techniques can apply to a fraud investigation. Photographic practice plays a key role in many crime investigations but must embrace continual change to ensure that it remains relevant to modern policing. Fresh approaches are essential and practitioners must fully utilize new technologies and adapt to tackle the increasingly demanding scope of fraud types.

KEYWORDS:

• Fraud
• forgery
• UV/IR
• Raman spectroscopy
• hyperspectral imaging
• remote sensing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Paul Michael Gilmour is a serving detective constable with Sussex Police. He is an accredited counter fraud specialist and member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. He is an Associate of The Royal Photographic Society, UK. He is pursuing his MSc degree in Counter Fraud and Corruption at the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies, University of Portsmouth, UK. His research interests include forensic imaging, fraud and money laundering.

ORCID

Paul Michael Gilmour http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6380-8563

Notes

1 Many nations issue polymer notes. For example, Australia (which introduced polymer notes in 1988), Mexico, New Zealand, Canada, Fiji and Singapore; the UK has recently introduced polymer-printed £5 and £10 notes.

2 An ortho-mosaic image is a type of orthophoto. Orthophotos are aerial photographs that have been corrected by software so that the georeferences and scale are uniform. An ortho-mosaic image is a series of individual orthophotos which are joined together using computer software so that they form a new, larger composite image, consisting of all the individual orthophotos [43].