A PIONEERING £150,000 crime-fighting unit has been set up to tackle internet crime across Lancashire.

The scheme, which is the first of its kind in the country, has been established in response to a massive rise in bogus businesses using the world-wide web to ply their trade.

The Internet Crime Unit will mean trading standards bosses will have the latest available technology for investigating dishonest traders on the internet and other computer fraud.

The two-year project will also include a forensic computer laboratory so computers used by bogus traders can be examined by experts and any evidence of illegal trading can be retrieved.

Assistant Chief Trading Standards Officer at Lancashire County Council, Dave Roderick, said: "This will be a very useful tool for us, especially when looking at computer fraud or internet sales because at the moment we simply do not have the expertise.

"More and more we find we are investigating trade on the internet and we have had quite a few complaints."

Mr Roderick said the new facility would mean they could call out computer experts if raiding a premises involved in computer fraud and also send off computers to the unit for analysis.

He said one of the most frequent problems they encountered was when people ordered goods over the web, but found they did not meet European safety standards when they arrived.