WIREDGOV

Scotland's leading crime fighting agency is to have its staff numbers boosted by more than 25 per cent over the next two years as part of a major new drive against serious organised crime.

The £4 million Scottish Government funding package over the next 2 years spearheads a raft of initiatives launched by Scotland's Serious Organised Crime Taskforce today which include:

• providing 80 new posts at the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA) over the next two years
• this includes more covert officers, e-crime specialists, and financial investigators
• the creation of a Scottish Intelligence and Co-ordination Unit to permanently 'map' organised crime and enhance law enforcement operations against them
• within that provide Scotland's first dedicated expert resources to build the intelligence picture to support complex fraud and human trafficking investigation
• the publication of Scotland's first multi-agency strategy to ensure that law enforcement, businesses, public bodies and communities work together to defeat organised crime

The Taskforce today also published details of the ground-breaking 'mapping' initiative which, led by the SCDEA in partnership with Scottish police forces and other partners has developed the clearest ever picture of the scale and threat of serious organised crime in Scotland.

This shows that:

• 367 serious organised crime groups involving over 4,000 individuals are operating across the country
• no police force area of the country is immune from the threat, with the 'top 20' networks impacting on the 8 Force areas to some extent
• over half the groups are involved in multiple types of crime, with 9 out of 10 involved in drug crime
• over half the groups have access to firearms

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said:

"Serious organised crime hurts our country in terms of public safety, the economy, and jobs. We need a co-ordinated approach to ensure the whole country stands up against it - on the streets, within our communities, in civic society, and in the wider economy.

"For the first time we now have a national strategy to tackle serious organised crime that goes beyond law enforcement. We also have a detailed map of the reach and extent of serious organised crime in Scotland.

"We know more about who they are, who they work with and what they are doing. Put simply, we are on to them and we will use that intelligence against them.

"We are committed to boosting Scotland's capacity to respond to this threat. That's why I can announce today that new money will be allocated to SCDEA to boost our capacity and capability to meet emerging threats from serious organised crime - including e-crime, human trafficking and complex fraud.

"Organised criminals are driven by their own greed and their desire for power and influence. However, they cannot and will not be allowed to spread their criminal networks, and today's announcement will go a very long way towards thwarting them."

Stephen House, Chief Constable of Strathclyde Police and Chair of ACPOS Crime, said:

"The additional resources announced by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice today will start to make a real difference, particularly as we now have better understanding of the extent of serious and organised crime across Scotland through the mapping project.

"Policing will use better knowledge and more resources to do things differently. Tackling serious organised crime will be a priority for all Forces, and we will mobilise and pool our resources to prioritise action against those causing most harm.

"Some of these will use specialist resources or covert techniques, but to be successful I believe that we also need to combine these along with having more community-based police officers using basic policing tactics on the street.

"Serious organised crime impacts on everyone in Scotland and we all have a part to play in tackling it. The strategy launched today makes very clear that this is an issue for the whole country - not just parts of the country. That is something ACPOS fully supports and, on behalf of Scottish policing, I want to stress that we are collectively up for the challenge."

Director General of the SCDEA Gordon Meldrum added:

"My objective has always been to ensure that we don't just chase organised criminals, we get ahead of them. In pursuit of this goal, knowledge is power. Today, thanks to the ground-breaking work of our mapping initiative, the balance of power has shifted a little in our favour. Our collective knowledge on the scale and threat of serious organised crime in Scotland is greater than ever, and we are now putting that to use in the protection of the public.

"Let me be clear, the information and intelligence we have pulled together in partnership with the eight Scottish Forces and other partners is no 'ivory tower' exercise. We have already used this broader picture to initiate new activity against specific groups and individuals.

"Now, with the support from the national Taskforce, this mapping initiative will become a permanent feature of a new central intelligence and co-ordination hub for Scottish policing. That, together with the substantial increase in expert resources announced for the SCDEA, will allow us to deploy more of the right people with the right skills to turn insight into action."

The Lord Advocate, the Right Honourable Elish Angiolini QC, said:

"The extent of Serious and Organised Crime which the new mapping figures reveal is significant and we will continue to work closely with the SCDEA, as well as the new Scottish Intelligence and Co-ordination Unit, to stamp out such crime.

"Today we announced that in the last year alone the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and Civil Recovery Unit have secured more than £6 million using the powers in the Proceeds of Crime Act. This legislation has played a significant role in disrupting both individual and serious and organised crime in Scotland.

"Nobody should succeed in their endeavours to benefit from the harm and hardship they inflict on others, whether directly or indirectly. The new measures announced by the Scottish Government today will help to ensure they do not."

Alan Dobie, Executive Director of the Scottish Business Crime Centre (SBCC) said,

"A successful economy is vitally important to a successful Scotland. Working in partnership with businesses across Scotland, the SBCC recognises the significant impact criminal activity can have on companies, with the potential for the effects to be felt throughout the wider economy, impacting on jobs, investment and future economic growth.

I welcome the launch of Scotland's first stratergy on serious organised crime and the commitment to enhance information exchange and collaborative working. The SBCC works hard to create and sustain strong public/private partnerships designed to reduce business crime across a variety of business sectors.

"This strategy provides a real opportunity to build upon these foundations, ensuring business, law enforcement and Scottish Government can continue to work in partnership to deliver a safe and secure trading environment in which Scotland's businesses and communities flourish."

Chris Harrison, HMRC Deputy Director of Criminal Investigation, Scotland.

"The strength of the Organised Crime Task Force will be its ability to bring together all of the agencies involved in tackling organised crime allowing them to share information, agree priorities and take action.

"Better collection and use of intelligence is the key to ensuring that the collective effort is well targeted and effective, and HM Revenue & Customs is confident that the task force will make a significant contribution in this regard."

Bob Lauder, Regional Director of the Serious Organised Crime Agency said,

"SOCA is committed to this taskforce. 21st century crime is a global business which doesn't respect borders, and SOCA's links with international partners mean criminals who try to cause harm to the UK have nowhere to hide."

Organised crime is motivated primarily by power and profit and although trafficking of class A drugs remains the single biggest threat to Scotland, serious organised crime groups are diversifying into other areas of crime including human trafficking, fraud, and Internet enabled crime.

As a result there is a need to diversify the skills base at SCDEA to ensure staff have the necessary skills and expertise to respond to the threat from organised crime and to support forces with the provision of those specialist services. This includes boosting capacity in the following areas:

• Financial investigators to boost efforts in recovering criminal profits, asset recovery and money laundering
• E-crime staff to interrogate and obtain information from computers and the Internet
• Intervention - to build knowledge in forces and business of ways they can help to tackle serious organised crime

The Scottish Intelligence and Coordination Unit - headed by a Detective Chief Superintendent - will become the recognised single point for the coordination and sharing of intelligence and information on serious organised crime groups across Scotland, linking in with the Regional Intelligence Units in England and Wales and with Europol. The Unit is expected to have around 30 staff and will effectively remove geographical boundaries, preparing the ground for the Olympic and Commonwealth games while enhancing Information sharing protocols with our colleagues across Europe.

At home the Unit will develop joint solutions with domestic partners including the Scottish Prison Service, Scottish Business Crime Centre, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and many other partners both public and private sector. In addition, the Unit will house a team focused on the mapping of Serious Organised Crime Groups (the who, the where and the how), the coordination of intelligence surrounding the trafficking of human beings, and the coordination of intelligence on complex serious fraud.

As the name suggests it will coordinate and analyse information and intelligence providing greater collaboration across many data systems especially human trafficking, fraud and the mapping of serious organised crime groups making Scotland a hostile place for Serious Organised crime.

The SCDEA expects to start the 2-year programme to recruit these additional staff with the appropriate skills to deliver on the Scottish Serious Organised Crime Strategy later this month.

Over the last 12 months a project team within the SCDEA has worked in partnership with Scotland's 8 police forces and other key partners like the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), the UK Borders Agency, and British Transport Police to map the scale and extent of organised crime.

The Serious Organised Crime Taskforce, which was set up and is chaired by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill includes the Lord Advocate, Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and the Scottish Prison Service.

Today's announcements build on a series of tough legislative measures already proposed by the Scottish Government through the Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill - The new offence of directing serious organised crime is aimed at making it easier to convict those who direct crime but distance themselves from the activity on a day to day basis.

The Scottish Government also wishes to see convicted gang members who commit crimes on behalf of their serious organised crime group. A new statutory aggravation will allow the courts to impose higher sentences if criminal activity has taken place on behalf of a serious organised crime group

The bill will also include powers to convict those living off the benefits of serious organised criminal activity and those people who facilitate such activity.

Good progress continues to be made with the Gartcosh crime campus which will provide purpose built accomodation for SCDEA and its covert policing partners as well as a forensic laboratory for the West of Scotland. A contractor is currently on site carrying out pre-enabling ground works and we remain on target for occupation beginning in late 2011.

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