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UK Releases New Organized Crime Strategy

July 28, 2011 at 4:43 PM ET by ONDCP Staff
Summary: 
The United Kingdom's new Organized Crime Strategy calls for additional tools to fight organized crime and underscores the importance of continued collaboration between the U. S. and the UK on international crime issues.

Today, the United Kingdom released its Organized Crime Strategy. The UK's Strategy is a complement to the Transnational Organized Crime Strategy released by the US Government on Monday, July 25.

Today's document outlines how the UK, like the United States, is updating its tools and authorities used to fight organized crime. This includes an increased focus on exploiting intelligence, such as lawful communication intercepts, to tackle organize crime. In addition, the new UK strategy also calls for closer cooperation within the European Union, through the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Quintet Group and the recently announced UK/US Organized Crime Contact Group. Finally, the Strategy outlines how the U.S. and the U.K - both leaders in global finance – will collaborate on international crime issues and work together disrupt international criminal networks, freeze criminal assets and ultimately keep communities safe.

The UK Organized Crime Strategy calls for:

  • Speeding up the asset seizure and forfeiture process;
  • Using existing authorities more aggressively and explore what new authorities may be needed to remove blockages in the seizure process;
  • Working with the Foreign Commonwealth Office to seize assets held overseas;
  • Exploring partnerships with the private sector to more effectively target criminal finances;
  • Increasing use of asset denial to deprive criminals access to their assets even if it’s not possible to recover them; and
  • Focusing on money service businesses to prevent abuses.

Through these recently-released strategies, the U.S. and the UK will now be able to more effectively target and address organized crime and work collaboratively to protect our citizens from transnational criminal groups which operate in both countries and around the globe.

For more information, read the full UK strategy and the U.S. Transnational Organized Crime Strategy.