U.K. launches 'FBI' to fight organized crime

[motorhead]

U.K. launches 'FBI' to fight organized crime

Updated Mon. Apr. 3 2006 12:33 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
A new British law enforcement unit has been launched to tackle the "brutal and sophisticated" criminal gangs of the 21st Century, Prime Minister Tony Blair said Monday.
The Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA), dubbed Britain's equivalent to the FBI, will bring together more than 4,000 police, customs and immigration experts.
It will target major gangs specializing in people-trafficking, drug smuggling and fraud.
British Home Secretary Charles Clarke said SOCA's budget will be over 400 million pounds ($690 million US) a year -- part of which is likely to be used to send staff on placement to foreign agencies such as the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Agency.
After announcing the launch of the 4,000-strong unit on Monday, Prime Minister Blair said the time had come to act decisively.
"We know this organized criminal activity takes place," he told reporters.
"The level of sophistication, the level, frankly, of brutality, with which many of these gangs operate today, means that we have to (operate) differently.
It was time to "stop trying to fight 21st Century crime by early 20th Century methods," he added.
The agency will have new powers such as the use of evidence from phone tapping, plea bargaining for witnesses and a more sophisticated witness protection program.
A major part of its role is to "reduce harm" to members of the public which will be measured by possible falls in the number of robberies or the number of addicts in treatment.
Clarke said SOCA officials have already been in talk with 40 foreign agencies, many of which have been receptive to the idea of a staff exchange program.
He said organized crime in Britain costs billions in criminal profit. He referred to some of the criminal gangs that will be targeted by SOCA as "very, very large organizations".
SOCA's chairman Sir Stephen Lander, former head of Britain's domestic spy agency MI5, said one of its main goals will be to take on people-smugglers who exploit illegal immigrants, such as the 23 Chinese shellfish gatherers who drowned in northern England in February 2004.
The agency will also focus on criminals involved in trafficking women, often from eastern Europe, into Britain and forcing them to work as prostitutes.
Last month, London police estimated there were 170 organized criminal gangs made up of over 24 different nationalities working in London alone.
The agency will start with 4,200 staff -- half criminal investigators and half analysis and intelligence -- and a budget of £400m.
Former police officers, ex-agents from the security services and key investigators from the customs, revenue and immigration services will transfer over to the new body.

[Richard_smoker]

Ha! that's great news. So Britain's recently stumbled into a large sum of money that must be immediately spent on something, huh?

I hope this turns out to be as cool as the original FBI.

Then, the U.S. should come out with a newer, even better federal agency that will be touted as a U.S. version of Britain's 'Serious Organized Crime Agency' (SOCA). This organization would be responsible for organizing and reviewing data and cross-checking various information obtained from both the Department of Homeland Security and from databases maintained by the FBI. A "SUPER-FBI" of sorts!

This shows some really great potential.

It's really amazing to see how much ingenuity can go into a law-enforcement model whose investigatory potential predates the information age. For a country whose law-enforcement agencies are essentially living in the paper-and-ink era of the 1940's and 50's, I think that the U.S. is really doing an excellent job maintaining information and sharing it between various agencies.

It has been leaked through anonymous channels that by the year 2049, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation will adopt a computer-based information databank that will rival the pre-internet office networks which were popular in private companies during the late 1980's and early 1990's. Just prior to the information explosion that we are now all-too-familiar-with.

GOOOOO USA!! GO!