The introduction of an online platform to book tickets for Hajj has transformed the threat of fraud in the UK, with dangers moving online, a senior police officer taking the national lead in Hajj-related fraud has warned.
Authorities in the UK are hoping to get ahead of digital tricks and scams by working with their Saudi Arabian counterparts and Interpol.
The 5,000 British pilgrims who will make the journey to Makkah this year reserved their places in February. Applications for the Hajj sold out within hours when they became available on Saudi Arabia's one-stop hub for the pilgrimage, the Nusuk platform.
City of London Police
Fraudsters have regrouped since the launch of Nusuk and are now putting up fake websites and promising last-minute deals to pilgrims, said Commander Umer Khan of the City of London Police.
Though the cases identified so far had been limited, the official assessment is that the online nature of the new fraud means there is potential for the threat to grow quickly.
“We've seen a sea change in the methodologies of fraud in the last 12 months,” Commander Khan told The National at a meeting at the City of London's Guildhall, which in recent years has been the site of Eid celebrations attended by the senior police officer.
Saudi Arabia introduced its Nusuk website for booking Hajj in 2020 − and it is now the only platform through which pilgrims can book. It has also limited the number of British pilgrims, as about 25,000 had been making the journey each year before the pandemic.
Muslims often spend most of their lives saving for Hajj, which is viewed as a spiritually cleansing journey that they are expected to do once in their lifetime.
“While the new model has limited the numbers, the demand is still there, and people are really wishing to go. We want to make sure that that demand is not exploited by criminals for nefarious purposes,” Commander Khan said.
Under 50 British pilgrims who were victims of Hajj-related fraud lost at least £150,000 in combined losses in 2024, and in many cases this was their life savings, according to Action Fraud data. But the real number sold bogus or poor quality trips could be far higher, as police believe only a fraction of cases are reported.
Digital threat
The Nusuk platform all but eradicated traditional types of Hajj-related fraud, but police are concerned by the new signs of online fraud that are emerging.
“There used to be back street agents who would sell and trips, then they wouldn't happen because of the limited number of visas available. They would take the money, shut up shop and run, or they would deliver a much worse quality package,” said Detective Chief Inspector Kevin Ives, another City of London officer involved in the campaign.
“When Nusuk came in, we really didn't see much fraud for a year or two, but now we feel we started to see cyber-related fraud sneak in,” he said.
“It seems clear to us from our experience that this is the crime type that's probably going to take off,” he said.
Examples of online Hajj-related fraud so far have been fake websites purporting to be the official Nusuk platform.
But DCI Ives warned that the range of methods will continue to vary and pilgrims needed to be alert to anything. The best way to stay safe was to only use the official Nusuk platform, and not go through any third parties.
The perpetrators of online fraud are more difficult to identify, and could be operating overseas.
Commander Khan said they were aiming to work with police in other countries and were had “preliminary conversations” with other forces and Interpol.
“We're in the early stages of setting up an international response. The very nature of cyber-enabled fraud is that you can have a victim in the UK, a website in one part of the world, and an offender in another part of the world.” he said.
Lasting impact
Commander Khan said British victims of Hajj-related fraud were often reluctant to report the crime. One reason was spiritual, with pilgrims “accepting” the fraud as part of God's will.
Both officers warned that the fraud had a long-lasting impact on its victims − which could be more severe than other types of travel-related fraud.
“People in our communities will say Hajj only takes place if God accepts you and if God gives you that permission to come to that holy house,” Commander Khan said.
Victims are likely to believe that “God has not accepted them”. “That is what hurts people most,” he said.
DCI Ives described it as among the most “horrendous” types of fraud he had encountered.
“If someone has saved their whole life to have this pilgrimage and they might never be able to go again. The impact of that on someone's life is forever. It terms of impact on the victim, its absolutely not normal fraud,” said DCI Ives.
Bilateral co-operation
The UK police is working closely with Saudi Arabia's embassy and the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office on finding ways to prevent Hajj-related fraud.
Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Hajj and Umrah Tawfiq Al Rabiah visited the UK in April.
“We have tightened penalties for several categories of violators: those who issue visas, those who transport them and those who shelter them. We are also intensifying the dissemination of awareness messages to avoid misinformation,” he said during the trip.
Saudi companies are licensed to provide Hajj packages through the Nusuk platform, meaning overseas travel agents are not present.
“In the past, Hajj packages were offered in these countries through tourism agencies that monopolised services, without adequate oversight of service quality or prices,” said the minister.
Applications are submitted electronically from anywhere. The unified platform has been used from 126 countries and does present packages from multiple companies with a guarantee of pilgrims' rights.
The minister said pilgrims will be compensated should accredited companies “fail to meet their contractual obligations”.
The dangers of using non-accredited agents was highlighted in an ongoing court case in Birmingham, central England. Hasib Chowdhury of Zamana Travels in the city was accused of defrauding people using WhatsApp channels. He was accused of accepting thousands of pounds for Hajj packages which were then cancelled by last minute messages. Zamana Travels allegedly did not book the flights, accommodation or make the applications on the system for the visas.
Tickets scramble
Some worry the new online system and the new restrictions on quotas was contributing to the scramble to obtain a Hajj package, leaving pilgrims more vulnerable to fraudsters.
A UK travel agent who has provided Hajj packages for over 40 years and is UK ATOL accredited said many pilgrims were elderly people who struggled to use the online system. He declined to give his name or the name of his company.
Tickets sell out within hours after the sales become available, while the tens of thousands of people descending on the site after sales are announced often causes it to time out.
Some pilgrims, he said, stayed awake at night in case the tickets suddenly become available.
“You have to jump on the computer and make the reservation within two hours or you wont get a chance to go to Hajj. In that situation you would book anything,” he said.
Many were being left out by the quotas. “You have people who have been trying to book a package for the last three years with this system. They may never be successful for the rest of their lives,” he said.
“In the old system the customer had a choice because there were hundreds of agencies, there was competition. If it was too expensive you could go to someone else,” he said.
“It was a much more personalised service, you could meet the people before you go to Hajj,” he said.
