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NCA NEWSA positive start for the NCA Just over two months after its launch, the NCA is working with partners to make a real impact on serious and organised crime affecting the UK. This has in part been achieved through Operation Assert, an NCA operation with the key objective of openly engaging with partners, the media and the public to demonstrate the positive difference the NCA can make through its operational activity. Op Assert has provided the NCA with a strong start by identifying and relentlessly disrupting serious and organised criminals and their groups. The key national tasking and coordinating structures are now in place which provide a platform to discuss and agree a common understanding of threats, our priority target set and our joint response. This edition highlights the work of NCA Operations and ‘Under the spotlight’ features the Economic Crime Command talking about Project Bloom, a taskforce set up to address the issue of pension liberation fraud. There is also an article about Operation Summergate which showcases successful partnership working with Staffordshire Police and how this had a positive impact on local communities.

We are delighted to announce five new appointments to the agency including the new Director of the CEOP Command.

We hope you find this edition both informative and interesting. The next edition of NCA News will be published on 10 January 2014.

I’d like to take the opportunity to wish all our partners a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Deputy Director General Phil Gormley, QPM

Issue 2 December 2013 NCA News – helping to keep our partners informed.

NCA ANNOUNCES NEW APPOINTMENTSNon-executive and CEOP Directors named

NCA. CEOP is now better able to protect children by drawing on the NCA’s specialist skills, wider resources, and international reach.”

The NCA has appointed four non-executive directors to the NCA Board. Welcoming the appointments, Keith Bristow said: “We looked for high-calibre individuals with a breadth of perspective and background, and particularly with skills in transformational change and technology. It was a very strong field and we have secured some exceptional people who will complement and expand the existing expertise within the NCA board.”

The new board members are:

• Jane Furniss CBE, former Chief Executive of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, Deputy Chair of the homelessness charity Crisis

Johnny Gwynne has been appointed as the Director of CEOP Command (Child Exploitation and Online Protection). Johnny is a serving Chief Officer with Police Scotland and has previously been Deputy Director General of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency. He was seconded to the NCA in June 2013 and is currently Deputy Director of the Organised Crime Command. The Director of CEOP role has been filled on a secondment basis since November 2010 by Peter Davies of Lincolnshire Police, the ACPO lead on child protection. Our Director General Keith Bristow paid tribute to Peter saying “Peter has worked tirelessly to maintain CEOP’s unique contribution to safeguarding children from sexual abuse and exploitation. During his time as CEO he steered the organisation through a period of significant change and its transition into the

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and a non-executive Director of the Solicitors Regulation Authority

• Sir Jonathan Evans, Director General of the Security Service between 2007 and 2013 and a director of HSBC Holdings.

• Dr Stephen Page, formerly global head of IT Strategy and IT Transformation at Accenture, whose broad career focuses on business change and leading businesses in the digital age.

• Justin Dowley, Chairman of Intermediate Capital Group and a non-executive Director of Melrose Industries and the Ascot Authority.

For more information on these appointments visit www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk

Johnny Gwynne, Director of CEOP Command

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NCA OPERATIONSA look at the NCA investigative networkOrganised crime affects the lives of British citizens at home and abroad. Currently, there are around 38,000 individuals identified by Organised Crime Group Mapping involved in organised crime affecting the UK, costing our economy and society between £20 - £40 billion per year.

Integral to the delivery of the NCA’s mission to lead the UK’s fight to cut serious and organised crime is NCA Operations. Operations provides a flexible, shared operational capability to the NCA. It has an investigative network based across the UK, with integrated financial investigators and intelligence support. It also includes Specialist Services, Intelligence Collection and the National Cyber Crime Unit. This operational capability will be augmented when required by suitably skilled NCA officers not currently in operational roles and by NCA Specials.

Investigations form the core crime fighting capability of the NCA and a broad range of projects and activities are commissioned by NCA Coordination and Tasking (NCAT). Once tasked by NCAT, the agency’s investigative networks will look to set up a proactive investigation into serious and organised group of criminals from an initial intelligence package. It then becomes the responsibility of operations, and the investigation team will build an in-depth intelligence picture and collect the evidence needed to link these people to their crimes and bring them to justice.

An investigation does not stop there and the next step is to take back any wealth, assets and benefit that the organised criminals have gained throughout the duration of their criminal enterprise, making it more difficult to engage in criminal activity again (please see article “No place to hide” on page 5).

Issue 2 December 2013 NCA News – helping to keep our partners informed.

Haul from investigations

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NCA investigators are trained to a required standard in key areas and are designated with one or more powers and privileges of a constable, a customs officer and of an immigration officer. Investigators are also extensively trained in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) and Criminal Procedure and Investigations (CPIA). They are required to develop the occupational skills required for proactive investigation to advanced standards in, for example, disclosure, exhibits, technical, surveillance, specialist surveillance, digital evidence recovery, child abuse investigation and economic crime.

This list of skills for Investigators is by no means exhaustive, but it is common that during the course of an operation most are utilised at some point.

Criminals are constantly seeking out new methods of carrying out crimes and evading law enforcement, however NCA Operations has demonstrated an ability to use a range of tactics to try and bring down those that deem themselves untouchable. The strength, determination and tenacity of the investigation teams has been proven and they will continue to work tirelessly to pursue these criminals and help lead the fight to cut serious and organised crime which affects the UK and our borders.

Issue 2 December 2013 NCA News – helping to keep our partners informed.

Haul from investigations including 10 boxes of cocaine

NO PLACE TO HIDETracking serious and organised criminals after release

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The Organised Crime Command of the NCA has responsibility for seeking and monitoring Serious Crime Prevention Orders (SCPOs) on behalf of the agency.

SCPOs are granted by the courts to help law enforcement track and monitor the most serious and organised criminals, and are secured on conviction to prevent the criminals from re-offending.

The first High Court SCPO was granted in October 2013 in relation to Curtis Warren, a significant and notorious drug trafficker whose criminal activities spanned over several decades. The SCPO will come into effect when Warren is released from prison following his 13 year sentence for conspiracy to smuggle cannabis into Jersey in 2007. Warren could have been released as early as January 2014 but is likely to remain in prison for several years following the imposition of a ten year default sentence after failing to pay his £198 million confiscation order.

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Although there have been numerous Crown Court SCPOs since they came into force in 2008, this is the first High Court Order and has come about through close partnership working between the precursor agencies, the NCA, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), the Jersey Police and Merseyside Police.

Some of the restrictions that will be imposed on Warren after his release include:

• a restriction on communications equipment • advanced notification of travel out of the UK • a restriction on the amount of cash he can carry

at any time.

SCPOs typically last for five years and any breach of an order is punishable by an unlimited fine or up to five years imprisonment.

The NCA will continue to work closely with the CPS, NOMS, Merseyside Police, and other partners to monitor Warren’s activities and compliance with the order. This order will make criminals think

twice about associating with Warren for fear of coming onto the NCA radar, making him ‘toxic’ to potential criminal associates.

Curtis Warren

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In the spotlight

BEHIND THE FIGHT AGAINST ECONOMIC CRIME

The NCA’s Economic Crime Command (ECC) is at the forefront of the fight against economic crime. They oversee the national response by working closely with partners across law enforcement, the public and private sectors, to remove the threat of economic crime from the UK. The ECC leads on investigating and recovering criminal assets in support of the NCA and its partners.

The ECC will continue to collaborate with partners from within law enforcement, the public and private sector to deal with fraud. Priority areas include money laundering, bribery and corruption affecting the UK economy, evasion of financial sanctions, fraud against the individual, identity crime, market abuse/insider dealing, cyber enabled fraud, intellectual property crime and counterfeit currency.

One of the most notable successes of the ECC so far has been the cross-agency activity to tackle pensions liberation fraud, where suspected organised crime gangs were believed to be cold-calling and text messaging pension holders in an attempt to deceive them into releasing large sums of money, with thousands of people estimated to have released up to £400 million into non-existent investment schemes.

Project Bloom, the multi-agency taskforce set up to address this, has issued awareness-raising products to the banking, pensions and public sectors, made arrests and disrupted pension liberation fraud activity including the suspension of 17 websites. The ongoing activity is being led and co-ordinated through the ECC.

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NCA WEB BUTTONS DEVELOPED FOR PARTNERSThe NCA has developed a suite of animated web buttons for police forces to include on their websites providing visitors to their sites with an instant click through to the NCA website www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk. The buttons transition showing three stills on rotation promoting that the force is working in partnership with the NCA. The buttons are available in a number of pre-designed sizes and can be obtained by emailing the NCA campaigns team at campaigns@nca.x.gsi.gov.uk.

PARTNERSHIP WORKING DELIVERS RESULTS Staffordshire praise NCA for quick operational response

The NCA recently assisted Staffordshire Police with an operation to target criminals suspected of being involved in a series of robberies across Staffordshire, West Midlands and West Mercia force areas.

Operation Summergate was adopted as a regional priority and the NCA agreed to provide a full mobile surveillance team for two nights to help monitor a group believed to be targeting supermarket outlets at early morning opening times, presenting a real threat of violence and intimidation to the staff.

Following arrests the NCA supported searches by deploying at very short notice a number of officers to work alongside Staffordshire Police.

This operation is an excellent illustration of partnership working, providing a good example of the NCA making a difference at a local level.

Working togetherto cut crime

HOW TO SUBSCRIBE TO NCA NEWSNCA News aims to keep our partners informed and updated on key areas of our business to lead the UK’s fight to cut serious and organised crime.

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