Tackling Organised Crime in Scotland The newly built Scottish Crime Campus at Gartcosh is a key part of our strategy to tackle Serious Organised Crime in Scotland. It will be fiully operational early 2014 and to encourage closer joined up working it will bring together key elements of the Specialist Crime Division of Police Scotland along with parts of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, the National Crime Agency (including the Serious Organised Crime Agency) and HM Revenue and Customs. Serious organised crime is a multi-billion pound enterprise. The social and economic costs of drugs misuse are estimated to be over £2.6 billion a year, and fraud, much of which is carried out by serious organised crime groups, costs £330 per person in Scotland each year. Everyone is affected by organised crime. It fuels street crime and increases the fear of crime through violence and intimidation. It brings misery to thousands of families through drug peddling. It undermines legitimate hard-working businesses, which costs Scotland's economy in jobs. Criminals in Scotland have connections that span the world, but most of the serious organised criminals operating in Scotland were born and bred in Scotland. Groups are branching out from illegal drugs into money laundering, fraud, human trafficking, fake goods, and internet crime. They don't care what they peddle or who it costs, as long as it brings profit and power. Law enforcement agencies in Scotland know more about how these criminals operate than ever before - and are acting together to take them down. |