Latest statistics released by the Crime Statistics highlight the types of deception offences that have occurred across Victoria in the past five years.
In the year ending 30 September 2015, there were 37,069 deception related offences recorded by Victoria Police. This represents an increase of 39.8% over the five years from October 2010. These offences include specific deception offences which are counted in the CSA's Deception subdivision as well as theft offences that involved methods of deception.
The North West Metro police region recorded the highest number of deception related offences, making up 45.9% of all offences across Victoria. This was due to the high number of offences that took place in the Melbourne Local Government Area.
Melbourne had the highest rate of deception related offences with 3,962.7 offences per 100,000 people, followed by Surf Coast (1,391.4), Yarra (1,384.6) and Greater Dandenong (1,359.1).
Common methods of deception recorded by Victoria Police were offences involving a credit card, false documents and ATM/EFTPOS facilities. In the year ending 30 September 2015, 4,614 deception related offences involved the use of a credit card, 3,173 offences involved false documents and 2,474 involved an ATM/EFTPOS machine.
There were 8,403 alleged offender incidents in the year ending September 2015, of which 1 in 5 involved an alleged offender between 25 and 29 years of age.
Males were also more likely to be an offender of a deception related offence, making up 72% of all alleged offender incidents.
More information on deception related offences can be found here, in this quarter's spotlight.