The threat from serious and organised crime is growing, the UK Government’s Serious and Organised Crime Strategy 2023-2028, titled ‘No Place to Hide’, admits. Such crime is estimated to cost the UK at least £47 billion a year; although that estimate is based on a seven-year-old one.
Our mission is to reduce serious and organised crime in the UK, Home Secretary James Cleverly says in a foreword. Mr Cleverly writes: “We will do that by disrupting and dismantling the organised crime groups operating in and against our country. We have continued to strengthen the NCA’s ability to combat organised criminals, increasing its budget by 21 per cent to £860 million in 2023-24. And we have increased the number of officers dedicated to tackling serious and organised crime in regional policing.” By the end of spring 2024, the Government will roll out to every territorial police force in England and Wales the ‘Clear, Hold, Build’ pilot, which is described as ‘an end-to-end partnership approach’.
On what he admits is a growth in online crime, Mr Cleverly says it ‘demands that we make sure that law enforcement agencies have the right tools, powers and capabilities to pursue offenders online, whatever type of crime they are engaged in. We will work with the private sector to build protection and with the public to increase awareness of how they can protect themselves.’
Serious and organised crime is described as ‘a major threat to the national security and prosperity’ of the UK. The document sets out how criminal profit is ‘often from trade in commodities, such as drugs, firearms or waste, or through the exploitation of people, including the facilitation of illegal migration. Increasingly, the profit comes from cybercrime and online fraud’. When the profit becomes harder to extract, organised criminals switch tactics, to other crimes: profit is often laundered from the criminal world into the legitimate financial system and then used to fuel further crime.
The covid-19 pandemic highlighted the swift adaptability of organised crime groups, for example the increased use of cryptoassets, the document adds.
Organised criminals prey on the most vulnerable in society, either as victims, customers or coerced participants and often use violence; and they ‘undermine the UK’s institutions, infrastructure and legitimate businesses by subverting financial systems and operating a hidden trade in illicit goods’. London as a financial centre ‘is particularly attractive to those wanting to commit both high-end and cash-based money laundering’. As for prisons, ‘experienced organised criminals often find an environment in prison in which they can learn new criminal methodologies’, and continue to run their criminal businesses.
For the document, visit https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/serious-and-organised-crime-strategy-2023-to-2028.
