Hostile states are using organised crime gangs to carry out illegal activity in the UK, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has warned.
In a speech outlining the agency’s annual assessment of crime threats to Britain, NCA Director-General Graeme Biggar highlighted “the emerging links between serious and organised crime and hostile states.”
States like Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran are collaborating with UK-based criminal gangs because it is harder for them to get their own operatives into the country since the Salisbury poisonings in 2018, he said.
Speaking in Westminster, central London, on Monday, Mr. Biggar said: “North Korea has for some time used cybercrime to steal funds and more recently cryptocurrency.
“The Russian state has long tolerated and occasionally tasked the cybercrime groups on its territory, and had links with its oligarchs and their enablers.
“And over the last year, we have seen hostile states beginning to use organised crime groups—not always of the same nationality—as proxies.”
Intelligence suggests that states—including Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran—are paying criminals in the UK to target individuals here, including threats to life.
Growing Threat
Matt Jukes, head of counter-terrorism policing, said on Feb. 16 that his force was going through a “significant shift” as a growing part of its work now focuses on threats from hostile states such as China, Russia, and Iran.He said the number of investigations into hostile state threats being carried out by his officers has “quadrupled” in the last two years.
Mr. Jukes said tackling hostile state activity has become a “growing part” of work for counter-terror police, with “missions outside of terrorism”—such as tackling state threats, espionage, and war crimes—now accounting for around 20 percent of casework.
Tech-Aided Crimes
In his speech on Monday, Mr. Biggar said there are around 59,000 people involved in serious organised crime in the UK, with around £12 billion generated by criminal activities each year and around £100 billion of dirty cash from across the globe laundered through the UK.Criminal gangs are exploiting illegal immigrants travelling to the UK in small boats, using “bigger, flimsier, single-use boats” and packing more people onto each craft, Mr. Biggar said.
Drug trafficking is also fuelling organised crime. Nearly 120 tonnes of cocaine and 40 tonnes of heroin are consumed in the UK every year, and NCA analysis of wastewater suggests cocaine use is increasing by 25 percent in some areas.
The agency wants to stop the use of synthetic opioids like fentanyl from getting a hold in the UK as they have done in the United States.
Another key component of organised crime is online fraud, which accounts for more than 40 percent of all crimes.
Mr. Biggar said developments in technology, such as increased use of end-to-end encryption, are making the agency’s work harder.
Hyper-realistic child abuse images created using artificial intelligence are also difficult to identify as computer-generated.
He finished his speech by saying: “Law enforcement, including the NCA, needs to do more to be at the leading edge of new technology: this will require collective vision and sustained investment.
“And, secondly, we need more effective strategic partnership from technology companies.
“This is about responsible behaviour about designing public safety into their products alongside privacy, so that we all reap the benefits from technology, rather than suffering their consequences.”
