Blair to launch new FBI-style crime-fighting squad

Published on Monday 3 April 2006 01:14

BRITAIN'S new FBI-style crime squad will shift the balance from crime lords to ordinary victims, Tony Blair will declare today, as he marks its formal launch.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) will focus on drugs gangs, human trafficking, major fraud and counterfeiting.

The Prime Minister will be joined by Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, at Downing Street this morning where they will hear about the progress the new non-police body has already made.

Bringing together experts from the police, customs and immigration staff, the new agency has more than 4,000 staff, including former spies, and has already been able to draw up a "most wanted" list of 1,600 organisations.

While it officially goes "live" today, it has been operating as a shadow body for a year.

Mr Blair will say that the law has been "too weak" in recent times and now "the balance will shift" back towards victims.

"Organised crime is a chain, the bottom link of which is the consumer and the individual victim. Even an apparently invisible and victimless crime like defrauding a financial institution has ramifications for ordinary people," he will say.

The security services MI5 and MI6 have provided some of the staff for SOCA, which is chaired by Sir Stephen Lander, a former MI5 chief.

SOCA personnel will be able to complete a training course and be designated with police powers, including the power of arrest, by the organisation's director general, Bill Hughes.

As Britain's first non-police law enforcement agency, its launch is a significant departure for the way crime is investigated on British soil.

Half the workforce will be criminal investigators, while the rest will focus on analysis and intelligence.