Policing organised crime

Question 1

What is ‘organised crime’?

Answer 1

Reluctance to problematise ‘organised crime’ and contrast/connect it to white-collar crimes, reflecting evolution of what criminals do as well as ideology
No analytically satisfactory definition – organised crime formally defined by UN Transnational Organised Crime Convention 2000, but its boundaries are unclear
“There is no legal definition of organised crime in England and Wales. For the purposes of this strategy, organised crime is serious crime planned, coordinated and conducted by people working together on a continuing basis. Their motivation is often, but not always, financial gain.” Home Office 2013
Controversy over terms like membership of an ‘organised crime group’ in the Serious Crime Act 2015 and EU member states

Question 2

Give examples of policing bodies in the UK that deal with organised crime… (11)

Answer 2

1) National Crime Agency (NCA)
2) Northern Ireland Organised Crime Task Force
3) Police (local forces for level 1 and level 2 offenders)
4) Regional Asset Recovery Teams
5) Economic Crime Departments/Fraud Squads
6) Dept of Business, Innovation & Skills
7) Competition & Markets Authority (cartels)
8) Financial Conduct Authority (‘market abuse’)
9) Trading Standards Institute and Local Trading Standards
10) HM Revenue and Customs (direct and indirect taxes)
DWP and local authorities (housing benefit)
11) Prosecution bodies England and Wales – CPS, Serious Fraud Office and Fiancial Conduct Authortiy

Question 3

How much funding does the NCA get per year? What about the serious fraud office?

Answer 3

NCA 500 million

SFO 35 million

Question 4

What does the Serious Fraud Office have a monopoly over?

Answer 4

SFO prosecutes only the most serious top layer of frauds, including its monopoly of transnational bribery prosecutions.

Question 5

What policing bodies are there in the USA?

Answer 5

• Federal, State and local police & regulators
• Federal include DEA (drugs), FBI (fraud and non-drugs organised crime, and terrorism), Homeland Security (including Secret Service - payment card frauds and cybercrime; Customs & Borders)
• Securities & Exchange Commission can fine and ban stock market ‘scammers’
• Department of Justice, State & local prosecutors
• Racketeering (RICO) statute 1970 v. enterprise crime
• Bank Secrecy Act 1970 required bank currency filings

Question 6

What international Bodies are involved in the policing of organised crime?

Answer 6

• Liaison officers overseas
• CPS prosecutors overseas
• Europol – information sharing/coordination
  Now includes FIU.net of EU Financial Intelligence Units
• Interpol – ‘postbox’ of international warrants
  Now includes sports corruption, cybercrime, etc.
• Egmont Financial Intelligence Unit network

Question 7

There has been an increasing collaboration between the public and private sector when policing organised fraud/laundering-fighters. How is this done? (5)

Answer 7

1) Intelligence-gatherers
2) Compliance officers/Money Laundering Reporting Officers within corporations
3) Criminal enforcers e.g. police
4) Regulatory enforcers
e. g. secuirty industry association
5) Commercial incapacitators e.g. freeze accounts to deny criminal from spending money

Question 8

There is a spectrum of different styles of policing. Where does organised crime sit on this spectrum?
What about specifically the SFO and the NCA?

Answer 8

Different agencies have a different profile of how proactive they are in going out for work.

SFO, NCA, BIS, Revenue and Customs, Divisional police, etc. are more proactive in developing intelligence than the white-collar crime ones (e.g. corporate compliance officers, risk managers, private investigators).

The SFO has prime responsibility for leading the investigation and prosecution of bribery and corruption, and the National Crime Agency are also becoming more proactive in enhancing this also.

Question 9

What is the national intelligence models to categorise offenders?

Answer 9

Level one - local level criminals
Level two - travelling but within one nation
Level three - transnational offending

Question 10

What powers do organised crime policing bodies have? (5)

Answer 10

1) Telephone-tapping and bugging regulated by RIPA 2000 – recordings from authorised ‘bugs’ & foreign-0nly phone tap evidence are admissible in court e.g. Hatton Garden Theieves
2) Stings and Covert Human Intelligence Sources - undercover cops, or pretending there are undercover cops, or bribing other organised criminals for information
3) Serious Crime Prevention Orders (enhanced by the Serious Crime Act 2015) e.g. only allowed access to one mobile phone
4) A customs officer or a constable may seize cash at the borders or inland if he has reasonable grounds for suspecting that the cash is recoverable property (crime proceeds) or intended for use in unlawful conduct and if the sum seized is more than £1,000
5) Implementation resources are a constraint

Question 11

Give examples of community approaches forms of serious crime containment (3)

Answer 11

1) community crime prevention
2) passive citizen participation: giving info about harms and risks, hotlines for reporting
3) active citizen participation: civic action groups

Question 12

Give examples of regulatory disruption and non-justice system approaches forms of serious crime containment (8)

Answer 12

1) regulatory policies, programmes and agencies (domestic and foreign)
2) Faster customs and other regulatory treatment for firms and countries that have approved internal compliance programmes
3) routine and suspicious activity reports as investigative triggers
4) tax policy and programmes
5) civil injunctions and other sanctions
6) Military interventions
7) security and secret intelligence services
8) foreign policy/aid programmes

Question 13

Give examples of private sector involvement forms of serious crime containment (5)

Answer 13

1) individual corporate responses
2) professional and industry associations
3) special private sector action bodies
4) anti-identity fraud and money laundering software
5) private policing and forensic accounting

Question 14

According to the serious and organised crime strategy annual report 2014 was the plan for ‘pursue’

Answer 14

the Government has invested in better capabilities to combat cyber crime and strengthen Regional Organised Crime Units, introduced important new legislation through the Serious Crime Act 2015 and Modern Slavery Bill, and committed an extra £10 million to tackle online child sexual exploitation. These steps will further improve law enforcement’s ability to identify, disrupt and prosecute serious and organised criminals.

Question 15

According to the serious and organised crime strategy annual report 2014 was the plan for ‘prevent’

Answer 15

pilot projects have been launched to deter at-risk groups from being drawn into serious and organised crime, and a frontline team has been established to support local delivery of the Strategy

Question 16

According to the serious and organised crime strategy annual report 2014 was the plan for ‘protect’

Answer 16

the Government has successfully ramped-up cooperation on economic crime through the Financial Sector Forum, and has published a new anti-corruption plan.

Question 17

According to the serious and organised crime strategy annual report 2014 was the plan for ‘prepare’

Answer 17

we have established a new statutory Code of Practice for victims of crime setting out the information and services that victims are entitled to receive from criminal justice agencies, a new national Protected Persons Service, and a new exercise programme to test and improve our response to serious and organised crime incidents.

Question 18

According to Sir Ian Blair what is the mission of the police?

Answer 18

“protect the weak, support the fearful and vulnerable, thank the helpful and lock up the bad guys” then Met Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair (The Observer, 3 July 2005)

Question 19

How can the private sector help with the police policing of organised crime? (5)

Answer 19

• Police surveillance technology is not self-implementing
• Get private sector to act as unpaid army of informants
• Get private sector to pay (again) for policing of those crimes for which they find public police powers useful: mostly fraud and IP crimes
• Corporate investigation agencies for more complex cases
• Police as business intelligence managers

Question 20

What is one big problem with policing organised crime (especially across boarders)?

Answer 20

New Localism

Question 21

What is the formal public-private cooperation? What what the the three levels of cooperation?

Answer 21

1) The crimes most amenable to cooperation are with an identifiable individual complainant/victim, especially if linked to a strong public policy interest – eg many burglaries are assumed drug related
2) A medium level of cooperation for crime with an individual victim who is reimbursed, alongside a corporate victim (eg, credit card fraud).
3) Low cooperation or no cooperation occurs when there is no individual victim (just a corporate one), e.g. unlicensed music

• Formal priorities can vary between and within state agencies. Private security agencies tackling music or film ‘piracy’ – which typically also involves VAT evasion – generally find more formal cooperation with HM Revenue & Customs than with police.
• Private funding of public policing units is developing in the UK e.g. Dedicated Cheque and Plastic Crime Unit or Insurance Fraud Unit

Question 22

What are the informal public-private cooperations? (5)

Answer 22

1) Structurally and occupationally, staff movement from public to private, leading to cultural closeness and informal ties. Successful (and some unsuccessful) police officers are aware of the prospect of a second career in private security.
2) This closeness leads to easy dialogue between individuals, identification of areas of common interest in which both formal and informal assistance may take place between units. However professional autonomy is valued.
3) In low-priority areas, where formal cooperation is lacking, informal assistance may take place between individuals if close ties exist (or can be built quickly) between them.
4) Bending of rules on sharing of information is widely acknowledged and Serious Crime Act 2007 changed rules.
5) Role of Information Commissioner in regulating data exchange

Question 23

Where does our knowledge base of organised crime come from? (3)

Answer 23

1) Economic crime data are found outside normal police/Justice ministry information sources - National Fraud Authority - now abolished 2014 - Annual Fraud Indicator collated data
2) Private sector data sources important, but normally accessible only where corporate sector wants to be seen as a victim e.g. credit frauds, intellectual property, not as an offender e.g. consumer offences, transnational corruption, some smuggling of genuine products
3) Flexibility needed as ‘new’ social problems emerge and require some harm estimation e.g. corporate and individual identity theft/fraud

Question 24

What is the future of policing organised crime?

Answer 24

1) Impact of EU enlargement & global people migration
2) Impact of Financial Action Task Force-led anti-money laundering (AML) measures
3) Impact of controls on other types of crime
4) Impact of criminal network analysis technologies - On frauds (of which the public sector is the largest victim category) and On targeted enforcement (e.g. against core nominals)

Question 25

What are the minimum costs of....
Human Trafficking
Fraud against EU (cigarette smuggling)
Fraud against EU (VAT/MTIC fraud) 
Fraud against EU (agricultural and structural funds)
Fraud against EU individuals 
Unrecovered motor vehicle theft
Payment card fraud 
 Insurance fraud

Answer 25

30 billion
11.3 billion
20 billion
3 billion
97 billion
4.25 billion
1.16 billion
1 billion

Question 26

How much does the Home Office estimate organised crime costs the uk?

Answer 26

€29 (£24) billion

0.0006% of GDP

Question 27

Who gets demonised by organised crime policing and how?

Answer 27

1) ‘Mafia types’ whatever they do
2) Widows and orphans’ fraudsters e.g. Robert the Hood: Prince of Thieves
3) Famous corporate or individual names e.g. Counter-attack on biased or careerist prosecutors e.g.2. Counter-attacks on denial of due process rights in extraditions to the US
4) Cyber criminals