Serious Organised Crime Agency

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The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) is a policing agency in the United Kingdom that acts against organised crime, including the illegal drugs trade, money laundering, and people smuggling. Its principal jurisdiction is England and Wales with more limited powers to operate in Scotland (where some of their activities require the permission of the Lord Advocate, the Scottish Ministers or the SCDEA) and Northern Ireland (where some of their activities require the permission of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland)[1]. The Northern Ireland Organised Crime Taskforce is responsible for coordinating operations against organised crime in Northern Ireland.

Background

SOCA formally came into being on 1 April 2006 following a merger of the National Crime Squad, the National Criminal Intelligence Service, the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU), the investigative and intelligence sections of HM Revenue & Customs on serious drug trafficking, and the Immigration Service's responsibilities for organised immigration crime.

The creation of the agency was announced on 9 February 2004 as one of the elements of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which also restricts protests and demonstrations in central London, and alters powers of arrest and the use of search warrants.

Parallels have been drawn between the organisation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States: indeed, parts of the press have labelled SOCA as the "British FBI." [2] Comparisons with the FBI are not strictly accurate due to non-federal nature of the United Kingdom constitution, and the completely different structure of policing. Police forces will continue to deal with most crime whilst SOCA will assist forces and also work independently with regards to serious organised crime. SOCA is an intelligence agency which has the role of "reducing harm", not specifically the arrest and conviction of offenders.

The FBI's primary roles are Counter-terrorism and Counter-intelligence, roles carried out by the Security Service - MI5 and Scotland Yard Counter Terrorism Command - SO15 in the UK. The National Policing Improvement Agency, at Bramshill in England has a similar role to the FBI in terms of supporting local police operations through training, developing new technologies and Serious Crime Analysis. The NPIA also offers Operational Support to Law Enforcement Agencies engaged in major investigations. The FBI's role in investigating Serious White Collar Crime is equivalent to the role of the Serious Fraud Officeand the City of London Police in the UK.

The FBI's Forensic role is provided by the Forensic Science Service in the UK, as well as other specialised Forensic Suppliers such as LGC Forensics, whilst Forensics relating to explosions are dealt with by the Defence Science and Technology Labs at Fort Halstead. Whilst the FBI Hostage Rescue and Critical Resonse role is provided by specialised units in the UK such as the SAS Anti Terrorist Team and Scotland Yard Specialist Firearms Command CO-19.

Scotland Yard Specialist Crime Directorate fulfill a number of national roles in relation to specialised Investigations such as Arts and Antiques, Wildlife Crime or Serious Incidents such as hostage situations, cases of Kidnap or cases of murder for hire, as well as being available to support local forces with complex inquires and investigations in relation to violent and serious crimes. Scotland Yard Computer Crime Unit and Paedophile Unit (who both work closely with SOCA's CEOP Unit) are also national lead police units. Finally in terms of the FBI's Public Corruption Role, the UK Standards Board oversees investigations in to public corruption alongside Audit Bodies such as the National Audit Office and in conjunction with the police service. The UK Parliament also has a number of Parliamentary Standards Bodies who work in conjunction with other agencies and the police service.

Former National Crime Squad detective Peter Blekesley said SOCA "needs to be elite. It needs to be secretive to a certain degree. To catch people in the highest echelon of organised crime needs a lot of dedication, a lot of expertise, a lot of officers who are multi-skilled, and devotion to the task. It's not an easy thing to take out the top people who are top of the criminal pile."[3]

The Agency has been criticised by civil libertarians. They have pointed out that its officers, unlike traditional police officers, are not required to swear a Police Oath to uphold the law but are civil servants answerable only to the government. Designated SOCA officers will, however, have powers of arrest equivalent to those of sworn police officers. For the first time in the history of the United Kingdom, employees of a central government agency will have full police powers of arrest, as opposed to the specific powers enjoyed by Immigration or Customs Officers. These powers are restricted in Scotland and Northern Ireland, however many SOCA officers will have no powers whilst others will have either customs or immigration powers depending on operations. SOCA Officers also operate abroad and their powers are limited by the rules of engagement for their specific attachment.

According to Home Office figures Organised Crime costs the UK around £20 billion each year, with some estimates putting the figure as high as £40 billion.[4]

Administration

The agency is an executive non-departmental public body sponsored by, but operationally independent from, the Home Office. It is funded by central government, with a provisional budget for 2006/7 of £457m, of which £416m funds on-going resources and £41m is capital investment.[5]. It will have around 4,200 employees, of which 400 are backroom staff. Of the remaining workforce, half will be criminal investigators and the other half will focus on analysis and intelligence. SOCA will co-operate closely with the police, intelligence agencies, the Assets Recovery Agency, HM Revenue and Customs, foreign police forces and others.

It is led by a board with 11 members. The non-executive chairman, responsible for the overall approach of SOCA, is Sir Stephen Lander, a former head of MI5. The other non-executive directors of the board are Stephen Barrett, Elizabeth France, Ken Jarrold, Janet Paraskeva and General Sir Roger Wheeler. Day-to-day leadership is provided by the Director General, Bill Hughes, who is able to designate SOCA officers as having the powers of a police constable, a customs officer, or an immigration officer. The other executive directors of the board are David Bolt, Malcolm Cornberg, Paul Evans and Trevor Pearce.[6]

The board has decided that around 40% of its effort should be devoted to combating drug trafficking, 25% to tackling organised immigration crime, around 10% to fraud, 15% on other organised crime and the remaining 10% on supporting other law enforcement agencies.[7]

The organisation has been split up into four directorates: intervention (finding ways to obstruct organised criminals); intelligence (building up a detailed picture of organised crime gangs); enforcement (investigating organised crime gangs); and corporate services (the administrative back up to the operational side).

Intelligence role and secrecy

SOCA operates from at least 40 offices across the UK. SOCA officers are empowered to perform a number of surveillance roles traditionally associated with British intelligence services such as MI5, although, unlike MI5 officers, some designated SOCA officers enjoy powers of arrest. SOCA is exempt from the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act.

Money laundering

SOCA takes over responsibility for dealing with suspicious activity reports (SARs), previously made to NCIS under the money laundering legislation. NCIS received just under 200,000 SARs in 2005. Despite criticism from professional representative bodies that the disclosure rules are too broad, SOCA has said that up to one in three SARs lead to or add substantially to terrorism investigations; that HMRC estimates that around one in five SARs identifies new subjects of interest, and one in four SARs lead to direct tax enquiries; and that many arrests and confiscations of criminal assets.[8]

Child Protection

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) is technically part of SOCA and its officers are SOCA officers. However, CEOP largely operates separately to the bulk of SOCA and will probably be funded differently. The task of online child protection had previously been (in part) the responsibility of the NHTCU.

Computer crime

Officers from the former National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) became SOCA's e-crime unit. However, the remit of this unit is much narrower than that of the body it replaced. In particular, the NHTCU had established a confidentiality charter to encourage victims of computer crime to contact the police in confidence, because many corporate victims in particular do not report attacks due to fears of bad publicity. The loss of the confidentiality charter has been widely criticised. [9][10]

See also

External links

References

  1. ^ Serious Organised Crime And Police Act 2005
  2. ^ "Crime-fighting agency launched". ITV. 1 April 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ "New 'FBI-style' agency launched". BBC. 1 April 2006. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ Home Office figures on organised crime
  5. ^ FAQs from SOCA website.
  6. ^ Governance from SOCA website.
  7. ^ Aims from SOCA website.
  8. ^ Financial Intelligence from SOCA website.
  9. ^ Bennett, Madeline (2006-04-07). "British FBI drops Confidentiality Charter for IT crime victims". IT Week. Retrieved 2007-03-14.
  10. ^ Clayton, Richard (2006-02-06). "Mysterious and Menacing". Light Blue Touchpaper, Cambridge University security blog. Retrieved 2007-03-14.
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