Una Riley, pictured, meets Trevor Pearce, the Interim Director General of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).
Background<br>In July 2010 the government announced a major re-organisation of policing in England that would change the way law enforcement agencies deal with crime and cybercrime. Home secretary Theresa May introduced the Policing in the 21st Century programme in the House of Commons, outlining what she called the "most radical reforms to policing in at least 50 years". The Minister went on to say: "A new National Crime Agency will lead the fight against organised crime, protect our borders and provide services best delivered at a national level. This powerful new body will harness and exploit the intelligence, analytical and enforcement capabilities of the existing Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) and better connect these capabilities to those within the police service, HM Revenue and Customs, the UK Border Agency and a range of other criminal justice partners." After the latest announcement there was posturing by certain people that did not agree with the unification of core agencies dealing with serious crime and there were others that were totally in favour. <br><br>Having been involved with organised crime fighting from his days in the National Crime Squad to his current role within SOCA Trevor Pearce is hugely in favour and fully supportive of the new National Crime Agency that should be operational from December 2013. I caught up with him prior to the Home Office announcement by Home Secretary Teresa May, that SOCA will form the core of the new National Crime Agency (NCA) organised crime command. The Home Secretary said: โThe impact of serious and organised crime is felt across the UK in the everyday lives of people and neighbourhoods. For too long we have lacked a strong, collaborative national response in the fight for criminal justice, with a fragmented approach to policy, prevention and investigation. It is time for a fresh start. By creating a powerful new body of operational crime fighters – the NCA – we will confront the serious and organised criminality that threatens the safety and security of the UK.โ I asked Trevor about the new NCA and he told me: โThe new agency will give a national overview of organised crime for the first time and allow crime fighting teams to work together to deal with the scale and complexity of the issues and challenges that we now face.โ It is understood that there will be a new intelligence centre at the heart of the agency that will build a national picture of the threats, harms and risks to the UK from organised criminals. This information will be used to prioritise resources and support the work of police and law enforcement agencies on the ground. It is intended that the NCA will work in partnership with the police, law enforcement agencies, businesses and the public to ensure those who commit serious and organised crime are tracked down, pursued, brought to justice and their ill-gotten gains stripped away. The agency will answer to the Home Secretary and will be made up of four distinct crime teams โ organised crime, border policing, economic crime (fraud) and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. It will employ investigators, enforcement officers, intelligence analysts and technical, financial and operational specialists who will use the latest technology and tools to tackle criminal activity. The reforms will see the new agency take over responsibility for investigating incidents of organised cyber-crime that are reported by businesses. At the moment, businesses can report incidents of e-crime, such as hacking and online fraud, to a number of organisations including their local police authority and the Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU), which is part of the Metropolitan Police. <br><br>Powers<br>I asked Trevor what powers SOCA had, at present. He said: โWe work to put serious criminals behind bars. We want to ensure crime doesnโt pay and that itโs harder to commit. SOCA officers can have the combined powers of police, customs and immigration officers. We also have a substantial range of tools and legislation to target criminals with everything from the ability to recover assets through to Serious Crime Prevention Orders. We work with agencies and officials across the UK and all over the world. We use traditional law enforcement methods such as investigating, and arresting criminals. We also draw on innovative new approaches to prevent crimes from happening in the first place. We use many ways to gather the knowledge we need to monitor serious career criminals, in some cases we watch them for life, to prevent them from continuing their criminal activities in prison or after release.โ We discussed the deterrent factor at length. I mentioned that it seemed that after doing the time for a crime the criminal is back on the street and is not always deterred from re-offending. Trevor said: โHitting them where it hurts is very effective. For many serious criminals taking their cash and property away from them probably worries them more than the prospect of going to prison! We know this has a devastating effect on them and they do not like it.โ I enquired about drug trafficking which seems to play at huge part in organised crime. Trevor said: โWe operate on a world-wide basis. We go anywhere we need to when tackling criminal activity, our reach is not limited by borders. For instance the price of heroin now is as high as it has ever been; there is a shortage the likes that we have never seen before. As we all know there are things happening in Afghanistan but we have been working really well with the Turkish authority. We canโt deal with the drug problem on the UK streets alone. The drugs are imported and come on to the streets from somewhere else. How do we drive people away from it? It is a matter of communication. Young people that use drugs these days are the same people that are really concerned with environmental issues on one hand but on the other hand they are quite happy to take some ecstasy at the weekend, without knowing, or perhaps they donโt want to know or understand, that the production of these drugs produces a horrible nasty effluent that gets drained into the marshes and dykes in Belgium! They are making a conscious decision on the Saturday to have fun, and morally on Monday complain about the environment. If they are aware of the equation then they are morally obliged to say โnoโ to drugs if they believe in saving the environment. To deal with our drug problem you have to start at source. That means that 95 per cent of heroin that comes in to the UK comes from Afghanistan … and we know that due to detailed forensics. We started a project some years ago that all seizures of class A drugs were analysed so we look at the purity level. We have seen cocaine down as low as five per cent … we have seen heroin at virtually nothing at all! Certainly it fluctuates, I can remember when I was on the drug squad (thirty years ago) you would get 80 per cent to 90 per cent and it has now come way down. There is an argument to say that there is a two-tier market where some buy high and others buy cut-down. What has happened with cocaine is that it is cut with other pharmaceuticals, such as benzocaine and lidocaine which mimic the effects of the high, so you feel a little spaced out and experience a sensation in the nose, but is it the affect of the cocaine or the cutting agent?โ<br><br> I told Trevor about an article I read according to San Francisco General Hospital, 90 per cent of all patients who’ve tested positive for cocaine use – have also tested positive for the animal de-worming drug levamisole. Whilst cocaine is often cut with other drugs to both increase its weight and potency, officials don’t know why levamisole is being used? The drug can cause agranulocytosis, which significantly reduces the number of white blood cells in the body. Trevor explained that the bulking agents that are used are a health risk and I wonโt mention some of the ingredients that are found … suffice to say that it should be enough to put anyone off snorting some of the rubbish that is sold under the guise of heroin and cocaine. Still, I donโt suppose there is any customer feedback or quality control when you purchase that type of product! <br><br>About Trevor Pearce: Appointed Interim Director General of SOCA on the 31st August 2010, he was formerly Deputy Director General of the UK National Crime Squad from June 2001 and became its Director General in September 2004. Previously, he had been appointed Executive Director of SOCA’s Enforcement Directorate in April 2006, having fulfilled the role of Executive Director (Designate) from February 2005 while SOCA was set up.
