oday sees the launch of the National Crime Agency which will target physical and online forms of organised crime.
Originally proposed as part of the government’s Cyber Security Strategy from two years ago, the plan then was for a cyber crime unit within the National Crime Agency that will build on the Metropolitan Police’s eCrime Unit, giving police forces across the country the necessary skills and experience to handle cyber crimes.
The new NCA said that the UK’s response to the threat will be “transformed” from today as a single law enforcement agency will be responsible for leading the national response to cut serious and organised crime and organised crime.
With more than 4,000 officers responsible for cracking intricate global cyber-crime and uncovering some of the most complex international fraud, and lead the whole of the UK’s fight to cut serious and organised crime, ensuring that such criminals and criminal groups are prioritised and that proportionate operational activity and disruption is directed against them, both at home and overseas.
Announcing its launch, Home Secretary Theresa May said: “I want to make Britain a hostile environment for serious and organised criminals, with the new National Crime Agency leading that fight.
“For the first time we now have a single national agency harnessing intelligence to relentlessly disrupt organised criminals at home and abroad with its own warranted officers, and the power to lead officers from other law enforcement agencies in coordinating that activity. The new National Crime Agency will mean that there will be no hiding places for human traffickers, cyber criminals and drugs barons.”
Keith Bristow, director general of the National Crime Agency said: “The NCA will be at the centre of a reformed policing landscape that will co-ordinate the fight against some of the United Kingdom’s most sophisticated and harmful criminals.”
However its establishment has been called a “rebranding exercise” by the Labour Party, as this replaces the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), which in itself replaced the National Crime Squad.
