Serious Organised Crime Agency
Serious Organised Crime Agency | |
---|---|
Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre | |
Website | |
web |
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) was a non-departmental public body of the Government of the United Kingdom which existed from 1 April 2006 until 7 October 2013. SOCA was a national law enforcement agency with Home Office sponsorship, established as a body corporate under Section 1 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. It operated within the United Kingdom and collaborated (through its network of international offices) with many foreign law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
The Agency was formed following a merger of the
SOCA Officers could be designated the powers of a constable, customs officer or immigration officer and/or any combination of these three sets of powers. The Director General of SOCA (or his designate) was responsible for determining which powers were given to members of staff which could be altered depending on the nature of the investigation.[1] Those police powers requiring a constable to be in uniform could not be exercised by SOCA Officers as the agency was non-uniformed.
SOCA operated with greater powers in England and Wales than in Scotland and Northern Ireland and as such worked with the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency and the Organised Crime Task Force (Northern Ireland), which shared some of its functions in their respective jurisdictions.
In June 2011, the coalition government announced that SOCA's operations would be merged into a larger National Crime Agency to launch in 2013.[2] The new agency, created through the Crime and Courts Act 2013,[3] commenced operations on 7 October 2013.
Overview
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. 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]
SOCA had a national remit and the role of the agency was to support individual police forces in the investigation of crime and conduct independent investigations with regard to serious organised crime. SOCA was an agency which had the role of "reducing harm", not specifically the arrest and conviction of offenders.[5]
Elements of the media attempted to draw parallels between the organisation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States: indeed, parts of the press labelled SOCA the "British FBI."[6][7]
SOCA was subject to similar internal and external governance mechanisms as the police service. The SOCA Professional Standards Department was responsible for receiving, investigating and monitoring the progress of public complaints about the misconduct of SOCA officers. Serious complaints regarding SOCA were dealt with by the
Governance
The agency was an executive
SOCA was led by a board comprising non-executive and executive members. The founding non-executive chairman, responsible for the overall approach of the Agency, was Sir Stephen Lander, former Director General of the Security Service (MI5). Lander was succeeded by Sir Ian Andrews, a former MOD Civil Servant. The other original non-executive directors of the board were Stephen Barrett, Elizabeth France, Ken Jarrold, Janet Paraskeva and General Sir Roger Wheeler. Prior to closure, the non-executive directors were Peter Clarke, Sue Garrard, Francis Plowden and Dr Martyn Thomas.[11] The original executive directors of the board were David Bolt, Malcolm Cornberg, Paul Evans and Trevor Pearce,[12] and today they are Malcolm Cornberg, Paul Evans, Trevor Pearce and Brad Jones. The agency's headquarters were in Victoria, not far from New Scotland Yard. There was also an office in Vauxhall, South London, not far from the Palace of Westminster and the SIS Building.
The founding Director General was
The board directed 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.[14]
Organisation
The organisation was split into three major directorates:
- Strategy and Prevention - Responsible for driving SOCA strategy and reflecting government priorities. Bringing together those functions focussed on preventative activity with partners such as disruption of criminal activities and denial of assets.
- Operational Delivery - Responsible for identifying how and where the desired impact and response can be achieved, planning and executing operations and the subsequent criminal justice and other disruptive interventions.
- Capability and Service Delivery - Supporting activities
The Agency had to deal with the effects of significant budget cuts that have affected both its strategy for dealing with organised crime and its ability to retain experienced police officers.[15]
The
On 1 April 2012, the Missing Persons Bureau, Central Witness Bureau, Specialist Operations Centre, Crime Operational Support and Serious Crime Analysis Section transferred from the National Policing Improvement Agency to SOCA, as an interim measure ahead of the proposed establishment of the National Crime Agency in 2013.[18] CEOP became an independent command of the National Crime Agency when it began operations on 7 October 2013.
Operations
This section needs additional citations for verification. (March 2017) |
National Central Bureau
SOCA acted as the UK point of contact for Interpol, Europol and the Schengen Information System.
In this capacity SOCA maintained the following functions:
- Single point of contact for International enquiries from SOCA and all UK Police and law enforcement agencies.
- 24/7 capacity for Interpol with direct connections to their databases and provides a specialist service to Europol[19] through Europol Liaison Officers.
- Coordination of all inbound and outbound Cross Border Surveillance requests with Schengen partners.
- Dedicated Fugitives Unit that acts as the UK Central Authority for all European Arrest Warrants(EAW).
Serious Crime Analysis Section (SCAS)
The Serious Crime Analysis Section moved to SOCA from the National Policing Improvement Agency on 1 April 2012 in advance of the planned establishment of the National Crime Agency in 2013. SCAS is based at Foxley Hall in the grounds of the
Criminal case files are received by SCAS from all police forces in the UK at an early stage in the investigations. The information is coded and placed on a single database, ViCLAS (Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System). The system was developed in Canada by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The investigating officer receives a report from a crime analyst with a number of key elements designed to assist the investigation. It will identify if there are grounds to believe that the offender has previously been identified. It will also provide a breakdown of the
Crime Operational Support
The Crime Operational Support unit also moved to SOCA, and provides specialist operational skills and to assist in the resolution of exceptional crime series and operational critical incidents.
Four regional teams of investigative advisers support regional investigations, and are themselves supported by the specialist skills of crime investigation officers, behavioural investigative advisers and geographic profilers. The unit identifies best practice in investigations, and makes these known through workshops and seminars.
Missing Persons Bureau
The Missing Persons Bureau (MPB) transferred to SOCA in April 2012 along with SCAS. It had previously been based at
The bureau acts as the centre for the exchange of information connected with the search for missing persons nationally and internationally. It is responsible for cross-matching missing persons with unidentified persons or bodies, as well as maintaining an index of dental records of missing persons and unidentified bodies.
The MPB also manages a missing persons and Child Rescue Alert website, and analyses data to identify trends and patterns in disappearances.
National Injuries Database
The National Injuries Database also transferred from the NPIA. It provides additional support to police forces by providing analysis of weapons and wounds, and seeking to identify similarities to aid investigators in determining which weapon may have been used. The database holds over 4,000 cases of suspicious deaths, murders and clinical cases, and contains over 20,000 images.
Money laundering
SOCA via the UK Financial Intelligence Unit took over responsibility for dealing with suspicious activity reports (SARs), previously made to the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) under the money laundering legislation.
NCIS received just under 200,000 SARs in 2005 and throughout its active life was widely critical of the banking and financial services sector, and the Financial Services Authority, for not being more transparent or forthcoming in reporting their customers suspicious activity.
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
The
Computer crime
Officers from the former
Website outages
The SOCA public information website, hosted by a third party, was subjected to a number of
See also
- Metropolitan Police Service and South Eastern Regional Crime Squad
- Forensic Science Service
- Human trafficking
- LGC Ltd
- List of law enforcement agencies in the United Kingdom, Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories
- List of special response units
- National Ballistics Intelligence Service
- Police Central e-Crime Unit
- National Policing Improvement Agency
- Police intelligence
- Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency
References
- ^ Legislation.gov.uk
- ^ "SOCA Opportunities". Serious Organised Crime Agency. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
- ^ "National Crime Agency - a plan for the creation of a national crime-fighting capability". Home Office. 8 June 2011. Retrieved 7 May 2012.
- ^ "Organised and international crime". Home Office. Archived from the original on 13 February 2006. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
- ISBN 0-10-561505-6. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
SOCA will be an intelligence-led organisation. Its core objective will be to reduce the harm caused by organised crime.
- ^ "'British FBI' to have new powers". BBC News Online. BBC News. 11 January 2005. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
- Press Association. 9 February 2004. Retrieved 9 August 2013.
- ^ IPCC to oversee public complaints against SOCA
- ^ FAQ's Serious and Organised Crime Website
- ^ "National Crime Agency - Home". Soca.gov.uk. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
- ^ "National Crime Agency - Home". Soca.gov.uk. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
- ^ "National Crime Agency - Home". Soca.gov.uk. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
- ^ "National Crime Agency - Home". Soca.gov.uk. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
- ^ "National Crime Agency - Home". Soca.gov.uk. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
- ^ O'Neill, Sean (13 May 2008). "Soca abandons hunt for crime lords". London: Time Online. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
- ^ CEOP Academy
- ^ Child Abuse Investigation Command – New Scotland Yard
- ^ "Five specialist units from the NPIA join SOCA". Serious Organised Crime Agency. 1 April 2012. Retrieved 7 February 2013.
- ^ "Another secretive European police working group revealed as governments remain tight-lipped on other police networks and the activities of Mark Kennedy". Statewatch News online. 23 August 2012. Retrieved 24 August 2012.
- ^ "Secrets of the crime analysts". BBC News. 29 April 2011.
- ^ "National Crime Agency - Home". Soca.gov.uk. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
- ^ Proposed merger of the Assets Recovery Agency and the Serious Organised Crime Agency
- ^ Bennett, Madeline (7 April 2006). "British FBI drops Confidentiality Charter for IT crime victims". IT Week. Retrieved 14 March 2007.
- ^ Clayton, Richard (6 February 2006). "Mysterious and Menacing". Light Blue Touchpaper, Cambridge University security blog. Retrieved 14 March 2007.
- ^ Government pledges funding for e-crime unit – 30 Sep 2008 – Computer Weekly
- ^ "Soca attack: Serious Organised Crime Agency site taken down". BBC News. 3 May 2012.
- ^ "Soca website shut down by cyber attack". Daily Telegraph. 3 May 2012.
- ^ a b "Soca website taken down after LulzSec 'Ddos attack'". BBC. 20 June 2011. Retrieved 20 June 2011.
- CBS Interactive. Archived from the originalon 20 June 2011. Retrieved 20 June 2011.
- ^ Henderson, Nicole (21 June 2011). "SOCA Website Back Online After LulzSec DDoS Attack". Web Host Industry Review. Retrieved 21 June 2011.