Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill
Serious Organised Crime Debate
Scottish Parliament
March 11, 2010
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Presiding Officer, tackling serious organised crime is a priority for this Government. I welcome this opportunity to update Parliament on the action we are taking to tackle this blight on our communities.
We have established the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce to provide a strategic focus for our work and to promote co-ordinated action. By working together we have a better chance of putting these criminal networks out of business.
Last June the taskforce published its Organised Crime Strategy. 'Letting our Communities Flourish' sets out how we plan to make our communities safer and reduce the impact of serious organised crime
The strategy focuses on 4 clear objectives. The 4 D's:
- Divert - How we are going to Divert individuals from engaging in or using the products of serious organised crime.
- Disrupt - How we will Disrupt the activities of serious organised crime groups
- Deter- through measures to protect communities, businesses and the public sector from serious organised crime.
- Detect - by boosting capacity and improving co-ordination to give serious organised criminals no place to hide.
The SCDEA have a major role to play in implementing the Strategy. That is why we are providing the SCDEA with an additional £4 million funding over 2009-10 and 10-11; an increase in funding of over 27 per cent since April 2007.
This additional £4 million is being used to:
- Establish a Scottish Intelligence and Co-ordination Unit; to better understand the intelligence picture and to allow more focussed tasking and co-ordination, and to
- Boost specialist capacity at the agency
The Scottish Crime Campus at Gartcosh will provide a purpose built national facility for the SCDEA and its partners to facilitate joint tasking and co-ordination. It will also house a purpose built Forensic Laboratory. We are making good progress. Work is due to start on the first construction contract in the summer and occupation scheduled to start in 2012.
We are determined to improve effectiveness in seizing assets and confiscating profits. Already over £27m has been recovered but we can do more.
To help mainstream asset recovery we have:
- Allocated £1.2 million to the Crown Office to allow the recruitment of specialist staff to help boost recovery.
and
- Provided £500k which has been match funded by the police service, to recruit 19 financial investigators in Strathclyde, Lothian and Borders and Tayside.
The majority of the money secured through Proceeds of Crime, is being re-invested into Cashback for Communities, providing positive opportunities in Scotland's communities for Scotland's youth. Already £13million has been invested in Cashback with over 100,000 Scottish youngsters benefiting
We are creating 4 new offences in the Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill. This package of offences targets the top of the criminal networks right down to the street drug dealer and the professionals who either facilitate such crime or turn a blind eye to it.
So why should tackling serious organised crime be a priority? Serious Organised Crime is a blight on our communities.
If anybody doubted this, our groundbreaking mapping project showed over 350 crime groups including over 4000 individuals are operating in Scotland.
These groups operate across Scotland from 6 groups in Dumfries and Galloway to 152 in Strathclyde.
The top 20 groups impact in all eight forces; over 92 per cent of crime groups are involved in drug crimes, over 40 per cent are involved in serious violence or murder.
But they are diversifying - they are involved in counterfeiting, human trafficking, e crime, fraud and money laundering. The list goes on. They will dabble in anything that gives them power and makes them money.
So this is a problem for us all - it is not just a problem for Glasgow and Edinburgh, it is not just a problem relating to drugs.
We should celebrate the many successes the police and Crown have had in disrupting supply, in seizing assets and confiscating profits from illicit activity and in bringing serious criminals to justice.
For example: George Buchanan, was made bankrupt last year when he couldn't pay his court costs after a successful civil recovery case by the Crown who sold a number of assets, including cash and cars.
Operation Lockdown targeted an organised crime group in Glasgow suspected of attempted murders and large-scale drug dealing. Running for 17 months, this operation resulted in 146 individuals being arrested, including the 4 main targets. Drugs with a street value of £9m and 30 firearms and other weapons were recovered.
All four principal targets pled guilty to dealing cocaine and one pled guilty to money laundering at Glasgow High Court on October 28, 2009. They were jailed for a total of 29 years.
On Monday morning I visited Glasgow and saw first hand one of the flash vehicles Strathclyde police had taken from an organised crime group.
I congratulate them on their determination to get back at these criminals who have laboured under the illusion that they control parts of Glasgow. Well the message is clear - you don't, you're not untouchable and your ill-gotten gains will be taken from you.
Two good examples of law enforcement agencies working together with local authority and support agencies were Operation Lochnagar in Grampian and Operation Focus in West Lothian which targeted 'street level' drug dealers, and the related anti-social behaviour. They were very successful
This shows the police are embracing this battle at all levels including in our communities. The Taskforce heard recently from a Strathclyde Community Police officer who told us how his team are tackling serious organised crime on the ground. This approach was starting to achieve positive outcomes and he and his officers felt they were actually making a difference! This is not an isolated case - it is replicated in communities across Scotland.
But more remains to be done. This is not a job for Government and law enforcement alone; it is for everybody.
Private Businesses need to make sure they protect themselves against organised crime, professionals need to ensure they are not inadvertently facilitating organised crime, local authorities need to identify and disrupt serious organised criminals, through their role in licensing businesses, as employers, and as regulators.
They must make sure public money does not find its way into the pockets of serious organised criminals.
In conclusion, Mr Presiding Officer; legitimate businesses, our downtrodden communities and the public expect us to tackle this disease and in doing so strip these criminals of the assets gained from their illegal activities. I am confident we will meet this challenge:
- We will implement the serious organised crime strategy and encourage all law abiding citizens to play a role
- We will harass and disrupt both the overlords of these crime groups and the lieutenants and foot soldiers who carry out the despicable crimes that make life in our communities a misery
Organised crime seeks to profit from crime in our communities, undermine legitimate businesses and threaten the framework of our society. This cannot and will not be tolerated.
We will be unceasing in our efforts to tackle serious organised crime across Scotland. We will not rest until this blight has been removed for our streets.
We will create a Safer and Stronger Scotland for all our communities.