Crooks and scammers have been taking advantage of the Coronavirus epidemic to ramp up their fraud operations with a 400% increase in virus-related fraud in March.

The FCA and Action Fraud have warned the public over scams carried out via bogus online trading platforms, as it was revealed £27m had been fleeced from investors.

Anti-fraud organisation Action Fraud has warned Instagram users to be wary of fraudulent investment posts as news emerges of more than 350 people being cheated out of a total of nearly £3.2m in the last five months.

Some victims of pension scams have lost more than £1m in savings each to fraudsters, new statistics have revealed.