What has Serious Organised Crime Agency to do with security managers?
SOCA is out to get the Mr Bigs of crime – who may have ‘scary’ resources and reach, a SOCA speaker told the recent meeting of ASIS UK. He explained how SOCA and security can help each other.
Briefly, SOCA is not a British FBI, though it does target the Mr Bigs of crime. The agency includes the former National Crime Squad and the National Criminal Intelligence Service, among others. David Lewis, who came from private industry to work in the agency’s intervention directorate, said that law enforcement has been good at taking out the Mr Bigs, but not so at understanding where the harm is, so that the authorities can assign resources to the Mr Bigs really doing harm. That is, SOCA has not that much to go by: David Lewis quoted a figure of £20 billion damage to the UK each year done by organised crime; but suggested this may be a ‘gross under-estimate’. SOCA puts a weighting of drug trafficking at 40 per cent of the total of serious and organised crime, compared with 10pc for fraud. SOCA, then, is about building knowledge, working with the private sector, to seize criminal assets, and raising the risks to the criminals – who may operate internationally and may never visit the UK.
Restricted view
As an example of SOCA’s work with business, while the public 30-page version of the agency’s UK threat assessment is at www.soca.gov.uk, a restricted 86-page document is offered ‘semi-officially’ to some in the private sector. That is, as David Lewis put it, there is much SOCA does not know, and it is being open with the private sector. Also of interest to corporate security: an anti-kidnap and extortion unit offers advice. David Lewis did stress a two-way exchange of information with the private sector. The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 that led to SOCA starting in April 2006 allows the agency to disclose information it takes from government. That does not over-ride the Data Protection Act, but it does allow the private sector and SOCA to share data for the agency’s crime-fighting purposes – to send alerts about threats, or for the agency to suggest ways of target hardening.
On the list
What does SOCA want? Senior corporate contact – at credit reference agencies, for instance, David Lewis said, for early warning of problems, or modus operandi. SOCA’s aim is life-time management of these so-called Mr Bigs, so that once identified as a ‘serious and organised’ criminal, ‘you don’t really ever get off the list’. The prospect, then, is of the criminal justice system doing more than investigating, say, insider dealing, but monitoring the serious criminals and disrupting their work.
Second Life
An e-crime unit of SOCA works separate from the rest, at Canary Wharf, previously the National Hi-tech Crime Unit. David Lewis spoke of ‘virtual worlds’ such as Second Life. Briefly, according to its website www.secondlife.com, it’s a 3D online digital world owned by its (millions of) residents. You can buy and sell virtual land, using Linden dollars. David Lewis warned that such virtual money is misused; for instance, credit card details go missing. Via virtual characters you can send money around the world and change it back into real money – in other words, use it for money laundering. There is the prospect, then, of policemen in such virtual worlds, walking around showing their badges. David Lewis did point to a difference between e-crime and ‘technology-enabled crime’ such as using ebay to sell stolen property. SOCA has liaison officers in 40 countries, taking the fight to organised criminals, working for instance with the Royal Navy to intercept drugs at sea.
A start
To repeat, SOCA admits that it is making only a start. There is an initial target list of 1600 ‘key criminals’, compiled by sifting what David Lewis called ‘a huge amount of data to identify the most harmful’. There are problems: bringing IT systems together, officers still having to adapt to a new culture of not always arresting the suspect, instead perhaps allowing him to stay on the streets, for the time being. David Lewis ended by quoting director-general Bill Hughes; that results will come slowly and steadily, because it’s a marathon rather than a sprint. And an acute question came from the floor: what is the definition of serious and organised crime? David Lewis admitted that it is SOCA’s judgement about the size of a group, and the seriousness of a crime; and the amount of money involved.
