Serious Organised Crime Agency
Encyclopedia
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) is a non-departmental public body
of the Government of the United Kingdom
under Home Office
sponsorship. SOCA is a national law enforcement agency
, established as a body corporate under Section 1 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005
, which operates within the United Kingdom and collaborates (through its network of international offices) with many foreign law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
The Agency was formed on 1 April 2006 following a merger of the National Crime Squad
, the National Criminal Intelligence Service
(elements of which were incorporated into AVCIS), the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit
(NHTCU), the investigative and intelligence sections of HM Revenue & Customs on serious drug trafficking, and the Immigration Service
's responsibilities for organised immigration crime. The Assets Recovery Agency became part of SOCA in 2008 and the Serious Fraud Office
remains as a separate agency.
SOCA Officers can be designated the powers of a constable
, customs officer
or immigration officer
and/or any combination of these three sets of powers. The Director General of SOCA (or his designate) is responsible for determining which powers are given to members of staff which can be altered depending on the nature of the investigation. Those police powers requiring a constable to be in uniform cannot be exercised by SOCA Officers as the agency is non-uniformed.
SOCA operates with greater powers in England and Wales
than in Scotland
and Northern Ireland
and as such works with the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency and the Organised Crime Task Force (Northern Ireland)
, which share some of its functions in their respective jurisdictions.
Following the formation of the coalition government in 2010
, the Home Office
began consulting on proposals to merge its operations within a larger National Crime Agency
.
, which also restricts protests and demonstrations in central London
, and alters powers of arrest and the use of search warrants. According to Home Office figures organised crime costs the UK around £
20 billion each year, with some estimates putting the figure as high as £40 billion.
SOCA has a national remit and the role of the agency is to support individual Police forces in the investigation of crime and conduct independent investigations with regard to serious organised crime. SOCA is an agency which has the role of "reducing harm", not specifically the arrest and conviction of offenders.
Elements of the media have attempted to draw parallels between the organisation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
of the United States: indeed, parts of the press have labelled SOCA the "British FBI."
SOCA is subject to similar internal and external governance mechanisms as the police service. The SOCA Professional Standards Department is responsible for receiving, investigating and monitoring the progress of public complaints about the misconduct of SOCA officers. Serious complaints regarding SOCA are dealt with by the Independent Police Complaints Commission
(IPCC). The IPCC will decide the appropriate method of investigation. In general terms, the IPCC will handle complaints against SOCA officers in the same manner as complaints against police officers or officers of HMRC. The Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland
(PONI) deals with complaints in Northern Ireland
. In Scotland
, this is the responsibility of the Lord Advocate
. There is also be a bespoke
inspection regime for SOCA, provided through Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary
(HMIC).
sponsored by, but operationally independent from, the Home Office
. It is funded by the UK's central government, with a provisional budget for 2006/7 of £457m, of which £416m funds on-going resources and £41m is capital investment. At formation it was intended to have around 4,200 employees, of which 400 were support staff. Of the remaining workforce, half will be criminal investigators and the other half will focus on analysis and intelligence. SOCA co-operates closely with the police, intelligence agencies, HM Revenue and Customs, foreign police forces and others.
SOCA is led by a board comprising non-executive and executive members. The founding non-executive chairman, responsible for the overall approach of the Agency, was Sir Stephen Lander
, former Director General of the Security Service
(MI5
). Lander was succeeded by Sir Ian Andrews, a former MOD Civil Servant. The other original non-executive directors of the board were Stephen Barrett, Elizabeth France, Ken Jarrold, Janet Paraskeva
and General Sir Roger Wheeler
. Today, the non-executive directors are Peter Clarke
, Sue Garrard, Francis Plowden and Dr Martyn Thomas. The original executive directors of the board were David Bolt, Malcolm Cornberg, Paul Evans
and Trevor Pearce, and today they are Malcolm Cornberg, Paul Evans
, Trevor Pearce and Brad Jones. The agency's headquarters are in Victoria
, not far from New Scotland Yard. There is also an office in Vauxhall, South London, not far from the Palace of Westminster
and the SIS Building
.
The founding Director General was Bill Hughes, formerly of the National Crime Squad. Hughes retired in 2010 and was succeeded by Trevor Pearce, who until then was Executive Director of SOCA's Enforcement Directorate.
The board has directed that around 40% of its effort should be devoted to combating drug trafficking, 25% to tackling organised immigration crime, around 10% to fraud, 15% on other organised crime and the remaining 10% on supporting other law enforcement agencies.
The Agency has had to deal with the effects of significant budget cuts that have affected both its strategy for dealing with organised crime and its ability to retain experienced police officers.
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre
(CEOP) is an operationally independent component of SOCA and is staffed by SOCA officers. The task of online child protection had previously been (in part) the responsibility of the NHTCU. CEOP recently announced the opening of the CEOP Academy, designed to be a centre of excellence in this area of law enforcement. CEOP works in conjunction with New Scotland Yard Child Abuse Investigation Command which has its own hi-tech unit.
, Europol
and the Schengen Information System
.
In this capacity SOCA maintains the following functions:
s (SARs), previously made to the National Criminal Intelligence Service
(NCIS) under the money laundering
legislation. NCIS received just under 200,000 SARs in 2005 and throughout its active life was widely critical of the banking and financial services sector, and the Financial Services Authority
, for not being more transparent or forthcoming in reporting their customers suspicious activity.
Despite criticism from professional representative bodies that the disclosure rules are too broad, SOCA has said that up to one in three SARs lead to or add substantially to terrorism investigations; that HMRC estimates that around one in five SARs identifies new subjects of interest, and one in four SARs lead to direct tax enquiries; and that many arrests and confiscations of criminal assets.
The Assets Recovery Agency
became part of the Serious Organised Crime Agency from April 2008. The power to launch civil recovery
proceedings has been extended to the three main prosecutors in England and Wales
; the Crown Prosecution Service
(CPS), the Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office
(RCPO) and the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). It will also be extended to the Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland
and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service
in Scotland.
(NHTCU) became SOCA's e-crime unit. However, the remit of this unit is much narrower than that of the body it replaced. In particular, the NHTCU had established a confidentiality charter to encourage victims of computer crime
to contact the police in confidence, because many corporate victims in particular do not report attacks due to fears of bad publicity. The loss of the confidentiality charter has been widely criticised. although similar protection is now provided by the same Act of Parliament used to create SOCA. The Metropolitan Police is to help bridge the gap left by the disbandment of the NHTCU through an expansion of its Computer Unit and the formation of the Police Central e-crime Unit (PCeU), which will work closely with the new National Fraud Reporting Centre (NFRC) from 2009.
Non-departmental public body
In the United Kingdom, a non-departmental public body —often referred to as a quango—is a classification applied by the Cabinet Office, Treasury, Scottish Government and Northern Ireland Executive to certain types of public bodies...
of the Government of the United Kingdom
Government of the United Kingdom
Her Majesty's Government is the central government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Government is led by the Prime Minister, who selects all the remaining Ministers...
under Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
sponsorship. SOCA is a national law enforcement agency
Law enforcement agency
In North American English, a law enforcement agency is a government agency responsible for the enforcement of the laws.Outside North America, such organizations are called police services. In North America, some of these services are called police while others have other names In North American...
, established as a body corporate under Section 1 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005
Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005
The Serious Organized Crime and Police Act 2005 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom aimed primarily at creating the Serious Organised Crime Agency, it also significantly extended and simplified the powers of arrest of a constable and introduced restrictions on protests in the...
, which operates within the United Kingdom and collaborates (through its network of international offices) with many foreign law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
The Agency was formed on 1 April 2006 following a merger of the National Crime Squad
National Crime Squad
The National Crime Squad was a British police organisation which dealt mainly with organised and major crimes. Formed in April 1998 after the amalgamation of six former Regional Crime Squads it merged on 1 April 2006 into the Serious Organised Crime Agency. The NCS reported directly to the Home...
, the National Criminal Intelligence Service
National Criminal Intelligence Service
The National Criminal Intelligence Service was a United Kingdom policing agency set up as a separate body in April 1992 to centralise the gathering and distribution of intelligence on serious and organised criminal matters. NCIS was formed out of the National Drugs Intelligence Unit in the Home...
(elements of which were incorporated into AVCIS), the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit
National Hi-Tech Crime Unit
The National Hi-Tech Crime Unit previously formed part of the National Crime Squad, a British Police organisation which dealt with major crime....
(NHTCU), the investigative and intelligence sections of HM Revenue & Customs on serious drug trafficking, and the Immigration Service
Immigration and Nationality Directorate
The Immigration and Nationality Directorate was part of the Home Office, a department of the United Kingdom government. The headquarters were in Croydon, South London where it occupied thirteen buildings...
's responsibilities for organised immigration crime. The Assets Recovery Agency became part of SOCA in 2008 and the Serious Fraud Office
Serious Fraud Office (UK)
The Serious Fraud Office is an independent UK Government department that investigates and prosecutes serious or complex fraud and corruption...
remains as a separate agency.
SOCA Officers can be designated the powers of a constable
Constable
A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions.-Etymology:...
, customs officer
Customs officer
A customs officer is a law enforcement agent who enforces customs laws, on behalf of a government.-Hong Kong:4 931 posts, of which nine are directorate officers, 3 804 are members of the Customs and Excise Department, 504 are Trade Controls Officers and 614 are staff of the General and Common...
or immigration officer
Immigration Officer
The role of Immigration officers are to ensure that immigration legislation is enforced. This can cover the rules of entry for Visa applicants, foreign nationals or those seeking asylum at the border, detecting and apprehending those that have breached the border and removing them, or pursuing...
and/or any combination of these three sets of powers. The Director General of SOCA (or his designate) is responsible for determining which powers are given to members of staff which can be altered depending on the nature of the investigation. Those police powers requiring a constable to be in uniform cannot be exercised by SOCA Officers as the agency is non-uniformed.
SOCA operates with greater powers in England and Wales
England and Wales
England and Wales is a jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. It consists of England and Wales, two of the four countries of the United Kingdom...
than in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
and Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
and as such works with the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency and the Organised Crime Task Force (Northern Ireland)
Organised Crime Task Force (Northern Ireland)
The Organised Crime Task Force is a multi-agency law enforcement taskforce operating in Northern Ireland. It was established in September 2000 to set the strategic direction for a multi-agency approach to tackle organised crime in Northern Ireland...
, which share some of its functions in their respective jurisdictions.
Following the formation of the coalition government in 2010
United Kingdom coalition government (2010–present)
The ConservativeLiberal Democrat coalition is the present Government of the United Kingdom, formed after the 2010 general election. The Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats entered into discussions which culminated in the 2010 coalition agreement, setting out a programme for government...
, the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
began consulting on proposals to merge its operations within a larger National Crime Agency
National Crime Agency
The National Crime Agency is a proposed national law enforcement agency in the United Kingdom, serving as a replacement for the existing Serious Organised Crime Agency. The new agency will be launched by 2013 and also include the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and parts of the...
.
Background
The creation of the agency was announced on 9 February 2004 as one of the elements of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005
The Serious Organized Crime and Police Act 2005 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom aimed primarily at creating the Serious Organised Crime Agency, it also significantly extended and simplified the powers of arrest of a constable and introduced restrictions on protests in the...
, which also restricts protests and demonstrations in central London
Central London
Central London is the innermost part of London, England. There is no official or commonly accepted definition of its area, but its characteristics are understood to include a high density built environment, high land values, an elevated daytime population and a concentration of regionally,...
, and alters powers of arrest and the use of search warrants. According to Home Office figures organised crime costs the UK around £
UKP
UKP may refer to:* Ukrainian Communist Party* Pound sterling, but the actual ISO 4217 code is GBP* The Unbounded Knapsack problem.* Ubiquitous Knowledge Processing Lab...
20 billion each year, with some estimates putting the figure as high as £40 billion.
SOCA has a national remit and the role of the agency is to support individual Police forces in the investigation of crime and conduct independent investigations with regard to serious organised crime. SOCA is an agency which has the role of "reducing harm", not specifically the arrest and conviction of offenders.
Elements of the media have attempted to draw parallels between the organisation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
of the United States: indeed, parts of the press have labelled SOCA the "British FBI."
SOCA is subject to similar internal and external governance mechanisms as the police service. The SOCA Professional Standards Department is responsible for receiving, investigating and monitoring the progress of public complaints about the misconduct of SOCA officers. Serious complaints regarding SOCA are dealt with by the Independent Police Complaints Commission
Independent Police Complaints Commission
The Independent Police Complaints Commission is a non-departmental public body in England and Wales responsible for overseeing the system for handling complaints made against police forces in England and Wales.-Role:...
(IPCC). The IPCC will decide the appropriate method of investigation. In general terms, the IPCC will handle complaints against SOCA officers in the same manner as complaints against police officers or officers of HMRC. The Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
(PONI) deals with complaints in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
. In Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, this is the responsibility of the Lord Advocate
Lord Advocate
Her Majesty's Advocate , known as the Lord Advocate , is the chief legal officer of the Scottish Government and the Crown in Scotland for both civil and criminal matters that fall within the devolved powers of the Scottish Parliament...
. There is also be a bespoke
Bespoke
Bespoke is a term employed in a variety of applications to mean an item custom-made to the buyer's specification...
inspection regime for SOCA, provided through Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary
Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary
Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary for Scotland in the United Kingdom have statutory responsibility for the inspection of police forces.-England and Wales:...
(HMIC).
Governance
The agency is an executive non-departmental public bodyNon-departmental public body
In the United Kingdom, a non-departmental public body —often referred to as a quango—is a classification applied by the Cabinet Office, Treasury, Scottish Government and Northern Ireland Executive to certain types of public bodies...
sponsored by, but operationally independent from, the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
. It is funded by the UK's central government, with a provisional budget for 2006/7 of £457m, of which £416m funds on-going resources and £41m is capital investment. At formation it was intended to have around 4,200 employees, of which 400 were support staff. Of the remaining workforce, half will be criminal investigators and the other half will focus on analysis and intelligence. SOCA co-operates closely with the police, intelligence agencies, HM Revenue and Customs, foreign police forces and others.
SOCA is led by a board comprising non-executive and executive members. The founding non-executive chairman, responsible for the overall approach of the Agency, was Sir Stephen Lander
Stephen Lander
Sir Stephen James Lander, KCB is a former chairman of the United Kingdom's Serious Organised Crime Agency , who also served as Director-General of the British Security Service from 1996 to 2002.-Career:...
, former Director General of the Security Service
Security agency
A security agency is a governmental organization which conducts intelligence activities for the internal security of a nation. They are the domestic cousins of foreign intelligence agencies...
(MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
). Lander was succeeded by Sir Ian Andrews, a former MOD Civil Servant. The other original non-executive directors of the board were Stephen Barrett, Elizabeth France, Ken Jarrold, Janet Paraskeva
Janet Paraskeva
The Rt Hon. Dame Janet Paraskeva DBE is a British government official.She was appointed as the First Civil Service Commissioner on 1 January 2006. On 15 November 2007 Paraskeva was announced by Peter Hain, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, as first Chair of the Child Maintenance and...
and General Sir Roger Wheeler
Roger Wheeler (British military)
General Sir Roger Neil Wheeler GCB, CBE is a retired British Army officer who served as Chief of the General Staff between 1997 and 2000.-Army career:...
. Today, the non-executive directors are Peter Clarke
Peter Clarke
Peter Clarke may refer to:Peter J. Clarke Born 1946, Owns and operates Clarke Gallery, Newburyport, Ma. www.clarkegallery.com*Peter Clarke , child welfare activist in Wales...
, Sue Garrard, Francis Plowden and Dr Martyn Thomas. The original executive directors of the board were David Bolt, Malcolm Cornberg, Paul Evans
Paul Evans
Paul Evans may refer to:*Paul Evans , British Olympic runner*Paul Evans , American college basketball coach*Paul Evans , Canadian ice hockey player in the National Hockey League who played for the Philadelphia Flyers*Paul Evans Paul Evans may refer to:*Paul Evans (athlete) (born 1961), British...
and Trevor Pearce, and today they are Malcolm Cornberg, Paul Evans
Paul Evans
Paul Evans may refer to:*Paul Evans , British Olympic runner*Paul Evans , American college basketball coach*Paul Evans , Canadian ice hockey player in the National Hockey League who played for the Philadelphia Flyers*Paul Evans Paul Evans may refer to:*Paul Evans (athlete) (born 1961), British...
, Trevor Pearce and Brad Jones. The agency's headquarters are in Victoria
Victoria, London
Victoria is a commercial and residential area of inner city London, lying wholly within the City of Westminster, and named after Queen Victoria....
, not far from New Scotland Yard. There is also an office in Vauxhall, South London, not far from the Palace of Westminster
Palace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...
and the SIS Building
SIS Building
The SIS Building, also commonly known as the MI6 Building, is the headquarters of the British Secret Intelligence Service . It is known within the intelligence community as Legoland and also as "Babylon-on-Thames" due to its resemblance to an ancient Babylonian ziggurat...
.
The founding Director General was Bill Hughes, formerly of the National Crime Squad. Hughes retired in 2010 and was succeeded by Trevor Pearce, who until then was Executive Director of SOCA's Enforcement Directorate.
The board has directed that around 40% of its effort should be devoted to combating drug trafficking, 25% to tackling organised immigration crime, around 10% to fraud, 15% on other organised crime and the remaining 10% on supporting other law enforcement agencies.
Organisation
The organisation is currently split into three major directorates:- Strategy and Prevention - Responsible for driving SOCA strategy and reflecting government priorities. Bringing together those functions focussed on preventative activity with partners such as disruption of criminal activities and denial of assets.
- Operational Delivery - Responsible for identifying how and where the desired impact and response can be achieved, planning and executing operations and the subsequent criminal justice and other disruptive interventions.
- Capability and Service Delivery - Supporting activities
The Agency has had to deal with the effects of significant budget cuts that have affected both its strategy for dealing with organised crime and its ability to retain experienced police officers.
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre
Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre , formed in April 2006, is a UK cross agency and cross business department of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, which is tasked to work both nationally and internationally to bring online child sex offenders, including those involved in the...
(CEOP) is an operationally independent component of SOCA and is staffed by SOCA officers. The task of online child protection had previously been (in part) the responsibility of the NHTCU. CEOP recently announced the opening of the CEOP Academy, designed to be a centre of excellence in this area of law enforcement. CEOP works in conjunction with New Scotland Yard Child Abuse Investigation Command which has its own hi-tech unit.
National Central Bureau
SOCA acts as the UK point of contact for InterpolInterpol
Interpol, whose full name is the International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL, is an organization facilitating international police cooperation...
, Europol
Europol
Europol is the European Union's criminal intelligence agency. It became fully operational on 1 July 1999....
and the Schengen Information System
Schengen Information System
The Schengen Information System , is a governmental database used by European countries to maintain and distribute information on individuals and pieces of property of interest. The intended uses of this system are for national security, border control and law enforcement purposes...
.
In this capacity SOCA maintains the following functions:
- Single point of contact for International enquiries from SOCA and all UK Police and law enforcement agencies.
- 24/7 capacity for Interpol with direct connections to their databases and provides a specialist service to Europol through our Europol Liaison Officers.
- Coordination of all inbound and outbound Cross Border Surveillance requests with Schengen partners.
- Dedicated Fugitives Unit that acts as the UK Central Authority for all European Arrest Warrants (EAW).
Money laundering
SOCA takes over responsibility for dealing with suspicious activity reportSuspicious activity report
In United States financial regulation, a suspicious activity report is a report made by a financial institution to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network , an agency of the United States Department of the Treasury, regarding suspicious or potentially suspicious activity.The purpose of a...
s (SARs), previously made to the National Criminal Intelligence Service
National Criminal Intelligence Service
The National Criminal Intelligence Service was a United Kingdom policing agency set up as a separate body in April 1992 to centralise the gathering and distribution of intelligence on serious and organised criminal matters. NCIS was formed out of the National Drugs Intelligence Unit in the Home...
(NCIS) under the money laundering
Money laundering
Money laundering is the process of disguising illegal sources of money so that it looks like it came from legal sources. The methods by which money may be laundered are varied and can range in sophistication. Many regulatory and governmental authorities quote estimates each year for the amount...
legislation. NCIS received just under 200,000 SARs in 2005 and throughout its active life was widely critical of the banking and financial services sector, and the Financial Services Authority
Financial Services Authority
The Financial Services Authority is a quasi-judicial body responsible for the regulation of the financial services industry in the United Kingdom. Its board is appointed by the Treasury and the organisation is structured as a company limited by guarantee and owned by the UK government. Its main...
, for not being more transparent or forthcoming in reporting their customers suspicious activity.
Despite criticism from professional representative bodies that the disclosure rules are too broad, SOCA has said that up to one in three SARs lead to or add substantially to terrorism investigations; that HMRC estimates that around one in five SARs identifies new subjects of interest, and one in four SARs lead to direct tax enquiries; and that many arrests and confiscations of criminal assets.
The Assets Recovery Agency
Assets Recovery Agency
The Assets Recovery Agency was a non-ministerial government department in the United Kingdom. It was established under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to reduce crime by confiscating the proceeds of any crime...
became part of the Serious Organised Crime Agency from April 2008. The power to launch civil recovery
Civil recovery
-United Kingdom:In the legal systems of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom, civil recovery is claimed by retailers to enable the retailer's claims handling agent to recover, in civil proceedings before the High Court or Court of Session, property which is, or represents, property...
proceedings has been extended to the three main prosecutors in England and Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
; the Crown Prosecution Service
Crown Prosecution Service
The Crown Prosecution Service, or CPS, is a non-ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for public prosecutions of people charged with criminal offences in England and Wales. Its role is similar to that of the longer-established Crown Office in Scotland, and the...
(CPS), the Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office
Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office
The Revenue and Customs Prosecution Office was a non-departmental public body created under the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005 as an independent prosecution body to take responsibility in the England, Wales and Northern Ireland for the prosecution of criminal offences in cases...
(RCPO) and the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). It will also be extended to the Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service
Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service
The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service provides the independent public prosecution service for Scotland, and is a Ministerial Department of the Scottish Government. The department is headed by Her Majesty's Lord Advocate, who under the Scottish legal system is responsible for prosecution,...
in Scotland.
Computer crime
Officers from the former National Hi-Tech Crime UnitNational Hi-Tech Crime Unit
The National Hi-Tech Crime Unit previously formed part of the National Crime Squad, a British Police organisation which dealt with major crime....
(NHTCU) became SOCA's e-crime unit. However, the remit of this unit is much narrower than that of the body it replaced. In particular, the NHTCU had established a confidentiality charter to encourage victims of computer crime
Computer crime
Computer crime, or cybercrime, refers to any crime that involves a computer and a network. The computer may have been used in the commission of a crime, or it may be the target. Netcrime refers to criminal exploitation of the Internet. Such crimes may threaten a nation’s security and financial health...
to contact the police in confidence, because many corporate victims in particular do not report attacks due to fears of bad publicity. The loss of the confidentiality charter has been widely criticised. although similar protection is now provided by the same Act of Parliament used to create SOCA. The Metropolitan Police is to help bridge the gap left by the disbandment of the NHTCU through an expansion of its Computer Unit and the formation of the Police Central e-crime Unit (PCeU), which will work closely with the new National Fraud Reporting Centre (NFRC) from 2009.
See also
- Forensic Science ServiceForensic Science ServiceThe Forensic Science Service is a government-owned company in the United Kingdom which provides forensic science services to the police forces and government agencies of England and Wales, as well as other countries.-History:...
- Human traffickingHuman traffickingHuman trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery...
- LGC Forensics
- List of police forces in the United Kingdom
- List of special response units
- National Ballistics Intelligence ServiceNational Ballistics Intelligence ServiceThe National Ballistics Intelligence Service, or NABIS, is the U.K.'s intelligence service dedicated to managing and providing detailed information regarding firearm-related criminality. The service aims to use its database to store ballistics information about police cases involving firearms, and...
- National Policing Improvement AgencyNational Policing Improvement AgencyThe United Kingdom's National Policing Improvement Agency is a non-departmental public body established to support police by providing expertise in such areas as information technology, information sharing, and recruitment.-Background:...
- Police IntelligencePolice IntelligencePolice intelligence refers to an element of the British police. Staffed by police officers and support staff, its purpose is to track and predict crime with a view to curbing it...
- Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency