Wednesday newspaper round-up: E-gates, Mike Ashley, Brexit

(Sharecast News) - More than 800,000 people in Europe and the US appear to have been duped into sharing card details and other sensitive personal data with a vast network of fake online designer shops apparently operated from China. An international investigation by the Guardian, Die Zeit and Le Monde gives a rare inside look at the mechanics of what the UK's Chartered Trading Standards Institute has described as one of the largest scams of its kind, with 76,000 fake websites created. - Guardian Passengers experienced delays at a number of UK airports on Tuesday due to a nationwide technical outage affecting UK Border Force e-gates. Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Manchester and Bristol airports all confirmed problems with passengers being processed through the border on Tuesday evening. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, the Home Office announced that e-gates came back online shortly after midnight. At the same time, Heathrow airport's Twitter/X account said: "Following the Border Force national outage yesterday evening, all systems are now running as usual. Passengers can expect to travel through Heathrow smoothly. We apologise for any inconvenience caused." - Guardian

Banks have shut the accounts of hundreds of defence companies amid fears that lenders' internal ethics policies are putting national security at risk. Santander and Lloyds closed 300 accounts belonging to "public administration and defence" companies last year alone, according to correspondence with MPs on the Treasury Select Committee. Other major lenders did not provide a breakdown, suggesting the actual figure could be far higher. - Telegraph

Mike Ashley has stepped up his jet-set lifestyle since handing over the day-to-day running of Frasers Group to his son-in-law. The retail tycoon has increased his annual spend on Frasers' private jet and helicopter to £2.6 million, after saying he felt "very confident passing the baton" to Michael Murray as the group's new chief executive. - The Times

Brexit is likely to have had a "sizeable negative effect on the UK economy", one of the International Monetary Fund's most senior officials has said, citing the country's exit from the European Union as an example of the dangers of trade fragmentation. Gita Gopinath, deputy managing director of the Washington-based fund, said Britain's exit from the EU's single market and customs union in 2020 showed the harmful consequences of breaking up trade ties, hurting economic growth and reducing cross-border investment. - The Times