“MORE predominantly than ever, fraud is global,” said Kerry Petulla, the executive director of enforcement, intelligence and financial crime at the Jersey Financial Services Commission.
“It’s international and therefore Jersey being collaborative on Island with all stakeholders, I think is hugely important to combat financial crime.”
Speaking to the JEP while attending a Financial Conduct Authority conference on the subject in London, Mrs Petulla stressed that the fight against fraud spans “multiple sectors”.
“We all play a role, from the regulator to government to the police, but also the telephone companies, Digital Jersey, cyber security.”
Prior to her time with the JFSC Mrs Petulla spent a number of years as a police officer and specialised in financial crime investigation within the force’s Joint Financial Crimes Unit.
She joined the JFSC in 2007 and – aside from a 13 month absence when she went to work for a large global consulting firm – has remained there ever since.
Earlier this year, Mrs Petulla also became the chair of the Jersey Fraud Prevention Forum, which aims to develop a co-ordinated and strategic approach across relevant agencies to protect Islanders from frauds and scams.
In November, the Forum warned that fraud reports to the States police had reached a four-year high, with losses expected to exceed £5 million this year.
Mrs Petulla said she expected the actual figure to be “much higher”.
“That’s just my personal view, because of the fact that there will be people who won’t report,” she explained.
“From my enforcement perspective, my enforcement team at the JFSC will issue warnings for scams and frauds when they are reported to us,” she added, noting that since 2023 there had been a 300% increase in warnings.
Mrs Petulla acknowledged that part of the growing challenge stemmed from the pace of technological change, including the development of generative artificial intelligence.
“It’s actually really low cost for the fraudsters.
“They can run a programme and target hundreds, thousands of people, and it will be low cost for them.
“It’s not like years ago, where you’d have to send a letter to an address. So you get a telephone directory and you’re sending a letter to somebody saying you’ve won on the Spanish lottery. It’s way more sophisticated now.”
This was reflected in the Forum’s advice in November, when it stated that investment scams “are becoming increasingly sophisticated” and that cryptocurrency scams “are also growing rapidly”.
It explained that common tactics included the use of fake websites imitating real firms, as well as social media adverts featuring “fabricated celebrity endorsements”.
Islanders witnessed this on multiple occasions in 2025, with the Jersey Cyber Security Centre urging vigilance against deepfake videos that were being circulated – in which Jersey politicians were depicted promoting fictional investment schemes.
“We’re seeing legitimate businesses or individuals who are being impersonated,” Mrs Petulla said.
“I myself was impersonated last year in an email that was circulated to industries in respect of some enforcement action that was being taken.
“A lot of scams that we’re reporting at the moment are impersonations of local Jersey businesses.”
Again, the former police officer highlighted that this has become “easy for the fraudsters”.
“With artificial intelligence, they can profile Kerry Petulla from her LinkedIn account and then from that they can see who I work with. They can go to the JFSC website very quickly and see who my director general is, who our chief financial officer is.
“You can very quickly build an email that talks as if we all know each other. And you only need a three second recording of somebody’s voice to be able to pretend I’m having a phone call with my director general, for example.”
Mrs Petulla acknowledged the “time critical nature” of the JFSC’s work, including getting alerts out “as soon as possible” to warn members of the public.
She explained that part of her focus through her role with the Jersey Fraud Prevention Forum was to establish a “single source of truth for Islanders”.
“Because I think at the moment, it’s difficult for Islanders. Do they go to a police website to see where the scams are? Do they go to the Commission? Do they go to the Consumer Council?
“For me, one of the key things I would love for the Fraud Prevention Forum to deliver is something like a single source of truth.”
Mrs Petulla said this would serve as “the one place that every Islander needs to know about to go and have their scam checked, or if they think that they’ve received a call that’s unusual and they go and see if it’s reported on that one single source of truth.
“Everyone’s working really hard in this space at the moment – and certainly the Jersey Fraud Prevention Forum has – but I think we could do something a bit better.”
She explained that this would involve improvements to the existing Forum website, making it more interactive and including more cross-sector engagement.
“For example, if the cyber team has picked something up, or the telecoms company. The telecoms companies are rich with data in this space.
“It’s more about, how do we all collaborate to say the single source where we are going to take this to is the Jersey Fraud Prevention website.”
She also pointed to the importance of “education and engagement” to help Islanders of all ages stay aware of the current trends.
“What’s really important then is to be driven by the intelligence and the information that we’re receiving.
“The Jersey Fraud Prevention Forum has got to be agile in its work.
“That’s where the Financial Intelligence Unit, the police, the regulator, the cyber security team, all of those [stakeholders] coming together with the banks, because the banks actually have fantastic insights into this – and that international co-operation is all very key to that intelligence piece.”
Asked if she felt there were gaps in Jersey legislation – in terms of the authorities’ ability to pursue cases of fraud perpetrated against Islanders from other jurisdictions – Mrs Petulla said: “Actually we’ve got very strong gateways, through law enforcement and the regulator with the UK authorities, and we will share intelligence and information.”
She added that banks in particular were “very well rehearsed” in this regard.
“If you have a bank based in Jersey and they’ve got headquarters in London, those banks will talk very, very closely and approach it as more of a global issue.
“The banks have worked very, very hard in the fraud space over the years and now I just want to see the other sectors come into that as well.”
