The Deputy Director of Police Division within the Scottish Government and the Director of Operations at the Crown Office are the Champions responsible for driving forward the Disrupt strand of the Strategy.
Disrupt - the activities of serious organised crime groups. This workstream includes: implementing the legislative changes in the current Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010; taking forward the recommendations from the joint Inspection report into proceeds of crime; putting in place arrangements for the lifetime management of offenders by identifying the current tools available to law enforcement to tackle serious organised crime, to ensure they are being used effectively (and if necessary consider ways to boost use) and to identity any gaps that require legislative fixes.
The following range of actions have been identified:
- Work together more effectively across Scotland, UK and abroad, to agree tactics and enforcement for the most dangerous Serious Organised Crime Groups (SOCGs);
- Co-ordinate working of regulatory bodies, including local authorities, to target the most harmful SOCGs;
- Improve effectiveness of seizing assets from criminals and confiscating their ill gotten gains;
- Tighten existing legislation and introduce new legislation to make it harder for SOCGs to operate;
- Work with professional bodies to tackle corruption and ensure Local Authorities and professional bodies use their own powers to help disrupt SOCGs and report suspicious activity;
- Develop mechanisms for lifetime management of serious organised criminals and groups;
- Ensure Scotland is fully engaged in international intelligence sharing; and
- Make more use of the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Examples of Disrupt
New legislation
We used the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 to create new offences aimed at tackling serious organised crime by including offences of directing, being involved in and failing to report serious organised crime, along with a statutory aggravation of committing an offence in connection with serious organised crime. We also strengthened the law on financial reporting orders.
Re-investment & Proceeds of Crime
We are committed to giving the police the right tools to take on organised crime groups. To help do this we are using the proceeds of crime to help our police track the gangsters illegal dealings and seize their ill gotten gains. As well as providing resources for 19 extra financial investigators we have taken steps to maximise the effectiveness of the Proceeds of Crime Act by extending the list of criminal lifestyle offences and reducing the criminal benefit amount from £5000 to £1000.
National Interventions Manual
The Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA) and Strathclyde Police have worked closely with the other Scottish police forces to produce a National Interventions Manual which will help significantly in tackling serious organised crime groups. Located on the Police Information Net for Scotland (PINS), the online manual contains a wide variety of tactical options which can be used against individuals involved in serious organised crime and their business interests and provides substantial support to the delivery of a tiered response to this type of criminality.
Public Procurement
The SCDEA and many of the police forces have been carrying out some excellent work with Local Authorities, Scotland Excel, the Security Industry Authority and a whole host of other public and private bodies with the aim of sharing information and best practice in procurement processes to prevent companies linked to organised crime groups from bidding for contracts involving public money.