NCA National Strategic Assessment of Serious and Organised Crime

The Gambling Commission has drawn attention to publication (on 25 May 2021) by the National Crime Agency of its National Strategic Assessment of Serious and Organised Crime, commenting:

This document provides a single authoritative picture of the threat to the UK from serious and organised crime. Page 57 of the document mentions gambling in an explanation of how and where illicit finance is spent.

The ‘Money Laundering’ section of the NCA’s National Strategic Assessment (that can be downloaded below in its entirety) can be found on pages 54-57.

Commenting on the National Strategic Assessment on the NCA website, its Director General Dame Lynne Owens has said:

The National Crime Agency, together with our operational partners, is disrupting more and more serious and organised criminality. But as our latest assessment shows, the threat to the UK from crime groups supplying drugs and firearms, trafficking vulnerable people, defrauding individuals and businesses, and from cyber criminals and child abusers, has proved resilient, including during the pandemic. Covid has shown these criminals for what they are – corrupt and exploitative.

This year’s NSA shows how criminal exploitation of technology is central to the threat. For law enforcement, the frontline must now be online, as well as on our streets. Whether in the real world or online, the NCA will continue to identify and pursue the criminals who pose the biggest risks to our families, communities, the integrity of the state, and its prosperity. No one involved in serious and organised crime in the UK should consider themselves beyond our reach.

Over the next year the NCA will continue to adapt: embracing ever stronger collaboration with partners, employing innovative approaches to intelligence collection and deploying our full range of capabilities to disrupt high-harm criminality impacting on the UK.

But while the NCA will continue to lead the fight to cut serious and organised crime, it is imperative that technology and social media companies match this intensity, building in safety by design and closing down all avenues for offenders to exploit their platforms. In particular, we must move to a place of zero tolerance for the presence of such material online in order to raise the bar to offending and, most importantly, protect children.