Organised crime offenders double number of soldiers

TWICE as many criminals are involved in organised crime groups as there are soldiers in the British Army, the National Crime Agency (NCA) warns today as it calls for its budget to be more than doubled.

The NCA revealed for the first time an estimate of 181,000 for the number of offenders linked to serious and organised crime in the UK – more than twice the strength of the regular Army with its 82,000 soldiers.

Its annual report claimed that the figure was a conservative estimate as it covered only known members of the 4,542 identified organised crime groups and child abusers operating on the dark web.

The NCA warned of a huge rise in online child sex abuse with a doubling in referrals of sex abuse material to police, from 10 million to more than 18million in a year, a trebling in county lines drug gangs from 700 to 2,000 in a year and an 80 per cent rise in slavery victims including prostitutes.

Lynne Owens, the NCA’S director general, said the agency needed an extra £650million a year – on top of its current budget of £424 million – to tackle the “truly staggering” scale of “chronic and corrosive” serious and organised crime in the UK.

A further £250 million a year was also needed to support other police forces, making a total of an extra £2.7billion over three years.

Such a big financial demand is unprecedented and will pile pressure on Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, as other forces also prepare their strategic budget bids to combat rising violent crime.

Ms Owens said: “Serious and organised crime kills more people every year than terrorism, war and natural disasters combined. It affects more UK citizens, more frequently than any other national security threat. And it costs the UK at least £37 billion a year – equivalent to nearly £2,000 per family.

“We need significant further investment to keep pace with the growing scale and complexity. Enhancing our capabilities is critical to our national security.

“Some will say we cannot afford to provide more investment, but I say we cannot afford not to.”