UK sets up new specialist unit to fight transnational crimes

London, Apr 3 (PTI) The UK on Monday announced the creation of a specialist unit to fight transnational criminality and go after organised crime groups that operate internationally, covering extradition-related matters.
    The new Joint International Crime Centre (JICC) is aimed at streamlining the country’s crime-fighting capabilities with cutting-edge law enforcement techniques.
    It combines the current capabilities housed in the National Crime Agency’s (NCA) International Crime Bureau (UKICB) and policing’s International Crime Coordination Centre (ICCC) in order for the UK to play a more efficient role in responding to the growing threat from transnational criminality.
    “While the JICC retains the best of both previous centres it is a new streamlined unit bringing together shared processes, teams, systems and data under one roof,” said Steve Rodhouse, Director General of Operations at the NCA, which hosts the JICC.
    “It will improve how policing and the NCA tackles international criminality that impacts the UK. I am confident that it will make us more effective in protecting the public,” he said.
    According to the NCA, JICC is designed to drive, coordinate, and support the response of UK policing and law enforcement to international crime and provides a multi-agency approach to meeting the increasing international demands of territorial policing.
    UK Security Minister Tom Tugendhat said: “Organised crime groups don’t recognise borders. If we want to crack down on the most dangerous organisations and offenders then we need to tackle them upstream, online and at source”.
    “The new Joint International Crime Centre will do just that, taking a multi-agency approach to identify criminal threats coming from abroad and blunt their reach into the UK,” he said.
    The new unit is made up of around 300 officers, with a third of them seconded from police forces, and its governance will be jointly overseen by the NCA and National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC).
    It is integrated with the NCA’s specialist international capabilities, such as its International Liaison Officer (ILO) network – in which scores of internationally-based officers cover cases in more than 120 countries.
    "The JICC will identify criminal threats emanating from abroad and build the capability to tackle and prevent them. The UK is a safe place to live, work and prosper and this new specialist unit will ensure we remain at the cutting edge of international law enforcement, creating a hostile place for those who would cause harm on our shores,” said NPCC International lead Deputy Chief Constable Pete Ayling.
    Besides extradition issues and Interpol and Europol-related matters, the JICC will cover services such as data management and analysis and outbound and inbound intelligence development and analysis. 

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)