Annual Report ORGANISED and Threat Assessment CRIME TASK FORCE 2006 - Organised Crime in Northern Ireland EVERYONE’S HELP IS NEEDED TO COMBAT ORGANISED CRIME … ARE YOU CONTENT TO ALLOW THE CRIMINALS TO CONTINUE TO ENJOY THEIR LAVISH LIFESTYLES WITH YOUR MONEY? CALL CUSTOMS CONFIDENTIAL, ARA CONFIDENTIAL LINE OR PSNI’S EXTORTION HELPLINE OR CRIMESTOPPERS NOW ARA: 028 9031 5039 HMRC: 0800 59 5000 PSNI Helpline: 028 9092 2267 Crimestoppers: 0800 555 111 Annual Report and Threat Assessment 2006 www.octf.gov.uk Organised Crime in Northern Ireland www.octf.gov.uk 1 Introduction ORGANISED CRIME IN NORTHERN IRELAND INTRODUCTION to relentlessly pursue those who engage in organised criminal activity. Our message to them is clear – we will disrupt your activities, prevent you from inflicting harm on our communities, and seize your assets. The results of law enforcement activity against organised criminals in Northern Ireland during 2005/06 confirm that we are having significant success: over £7 million worth of drugs and almost £10 million worth of counterfeit goods have been taken off our streets, and over £30 million worth of criminal assets have been restrained, confiscated or seized. I also very much welcome the interest which the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee is I am pleased to introduce the sixth Annual taking into the whole question of organised Report by the Organised Crime Task Force crime in Northern Ireland. Their review has (OCTF) and congratulate all of our law been valuable both in focusing thinking enforcement partners on the impressive about how to deal with the problems and successes they have had during 2005/06. in demonstrating very tangibly Parliamentary They are providing a vital service to the support for the law enforcement agencies in people of Northern Ireland and I look forward carrying out their important work. to their continued success in 2006/07. An important development this year was This has been a year of change and the launch of the Serious Organised Crime opportunity for the OCTF which began with Agency (SOCA) on 2 April 2006. OCTF forged the review commissioned by Paul Murphy links with SOCA during its creation and the in February 2005. The review provided an new Agency is already a key member of OCTF excellent opportunity to assess critically at a number of levels. That partnership will how we tackle organised crime in Northern continue to develop over the coming year. Ireland and to ensure our structures are fit for purpose. I am also grateful to Shaun Woodward for his endeavours as Chair of the OCTF and I know I am grateful to all those who contributed to that Paul Goggins will build on that work in the review. Your opinions and ideas have the coming months and years. helped to shape the OCTF into an even more robust multi-agency partnership to face the challenges posed by organised crime to Northern Ireland society. The Government is fully committed to tackling RT HON PETER HAIN MP SECRETARY OF organised crime in Northern Ireland and the STATE FOR NORTHERN IRELAND OCTF and its partner agencies will continue 2 Foreword FOREWORD of dealing decisively with a problem that has the capacity to corrupt our society. Organised crime creates victims across the spectrum, from shop keepers robbed at gunpoint, to families destroyed by drugs, to citizens whose safety and livelihoods are jeopardised ORGANISED CRIME IN NORTHERN IRELAND by counterfeit goods or extortionists. The Secretary of State has already commented on the achievements by Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) over the last twelve months and further details of the impact made by OCTF partners against organised crime are provided in Chapter One. I am very grateful to these agencies for their commitment and efforts in the past year. Every citizen can play their part in tackling organised crime in Northern Ireland and OCTF is committed to continually raising I am pleased to be taking up the role of awareness of the dangers of and harms Chair of the Organised Crime Task Force caused by organised crime and the ways in (OCTF) in Northern Ireland and welcome which public vigilance can help counter it. It the opportunity to work with OCTF members is equally important that public confidence to tackle organised crime here. My former is sustained by demonstrating that the Ministerial responsibilities in the Home steps we are taking are successfully putting Office included serious and organised criminals out of business. To that end a new crime, drugs, the Assets Recovery Agency strategy to raise public awareness is being and the Security Industry Authority and I developed by OCTF. am fully aware of the problems we face nationally. I am also aware that organised Since joining the OCTF last year the Head crime in Northern Ireland differs from the of the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) rest of the United Kingdom because of its has formed a NICS interdepartmental group, history of paramilitary involvement and the whose aim is to promote awareness of land border with the Republic of Ireland but the organised crime threat in Government I am confident that the OCTF and the links Departments and the wider public sector. it has with agencies in these, and other, It is taking forward a range of initiatives, jurisdictions are effectively addressing these including considering how existing laws issues. and regulations can best be exploited and enhanced to tackle organised criminality. We should not exaggerate the scale of the problem posed by organised crime – I have already mentioned the land border Northern Ireland is not a mafia society - but with the Republic of Ireland. In some nor should we shy away from the necessity areas of criminality, such as smuggling and money laundering, the border offers 3 ORGANISED CRIME IN NORTHERN IRELAND FOREWORD criminal opportunities to avoid detection and crime, distinguishes between the activities conceal assets. That is why cross border of individual members and those of the co-operation at all levels across government organisation. The Government is clear that and law enforcement is vital and I am criminal activity will not be tolerated, from pleased to report that it has never been whatever source, and therefore welcomes better. This year we have seen a number of this report of PIRA moving away from co-ordinated large-scale operations involving organised crime. It hopes and expects that agencies from both jurisdictions against these commitments will continue to be met those engaged in cross border organised and that other paramilitary groups will follow crime. These close working relations are suit without delay. further strengthened through an annual cross border co-operation seminar to improve There are no quick fixes to tackling organised our shared understanding of cross border crime. It needs to be tackled at a number of organised crime and to review and evaluate levels - operational, legislative and political. our progress in tackling it. I firmly believe that by working in partnership – by combining effective enforcement with Organised crime is not, of course, confined ongoing public support - we will succeed in to Northern Ireland or the Republic and we our fight against organised crime. are working with SOCA and law enforcement agencies in other jurisdictions to tackle I would like to thank OCTF partners and all organised criminals across the UK and those who have contributed to this report. further afield. It is encouraging - and revealing - to note that during 2005/06 12 law enforcement operations in the UK and 17 international operations impacted on organised crime networks in Northern Ireland. It is clear from the Threat Assessment PAUL GOGGINS MP in Chapter Two that persons linked, now SECURITY MINISTER AND CHAIR OF THE or previously, with paramilitary groups in ORGANISED CRIME TASK FORCE Northern Ireland continue to be actively engaged in organised crime. It is not always clear if these activities are by individual members for their own gain or by members authorised by the organisation. PIRA’s Easter message said that “The IRA has no responsibility for the tiny number of former republicans who have embraced criminal activity. They do so for self-gain. We repudiate this activity and denounce those involved.” This is supported by the IMC’s latest assessment of PIRA in its tenth report which, despite recognising that some PIRA members may still be involved in 5 CHAPTER 1 PRIOR YEAR RESULTS Chapter 1 Prior Year Results - Assessing Our Impact MISSION exercised by these gangs; stripping criminals of their assets and lavish 1.1 The mission of the Organised Crime lifestyles derived from ill gotten gains Task Force is to help secure a sends a powerful message that safe, just and prosperous society crime doesn’t pay; and successfully in Northern Ireland by confronting tackling organised crime stimulates organised crime through a multi- our economy and encourages inward agency partnership between central investment. and NI Government Departments, law enforcement, the Policing Board, 1.4 Measuring the social and economic the business community and the harm caused by organised crime and community at large. assessing the extent to which that harm is reduced by law enforcement intervention is difficult but it is also ASSESSING OUR IMPACT IN essential if we are to establish the scale of the problem we face, and 2005/06 whether (and which of) our strategies are working. The OCTF is putting 1.2 OCTF’s Threat Assessment last year additional resources into research identified the range of organised in this area to establish firmer data criminality which poses the greatest to inform policy and operational threat to Northern Ireland as decisions and priorities. Progress extortion, blackmail and intimidation, will be reported in future Annual drugs, excise and tax frauds, money Reports.