Putting the Drugs Business

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• Putting the Drugs Business
• Out of Business

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CIDA and CICFAConcerted Inter-agency
ActionPaul Evans, Director InvestigationHMCE
Law Enforcement
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What is CIDA?

• Concerted Inter-Agency Drugs Action Group
• Established 1999 to co-ordinate the activity of
  supply side agencies
• Supported by a multi-agency Secretariat
• Aims to increase the impact of supply side
  interventions to reduce crime
• Delivery Strategy

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Who?
NCS
PMDU
ACPO
NCIS
HMCE
SDEA
Security Services
Home Office
Foreign Office
Cabinet Office
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Why a Delivery Strategy?

• Difficulties in meeting specific targets
• Ministerial interest and review by the PMDU
• New challenge through new PSA target
• Move away from traditional output measures
• Focus on outcomes specifically achieving a
  sustained impact on the availability of Class A
  drugs in the UK
• Harm reduction

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The scale of the problem

• Up to 300,000 problem drug users in the UK
• Committing substantial amounts of crime to fund
  their habit
• Over half of all crime is drug related or
  motivated
• Estimates for drug-related crime are up to 19bn
  each year
• Additional impact on health services and on
  communities
• Successful UK importation estimate per year
• 40 tonnes Cocaine
• 25-30 tonnes Heroin

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Routes
To Europe 15
To Europe 15-20
Heroin 100 tonnes
Heroin 350 tonnes
Cocaine 700 tonnes
Cocaine seizures en route 20-25
Heroin seizures en route 15
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The drugs trafficking business is innovative and
flexible
Flexibility

• High. Groups respond quickly innovatively to
  interventions

Constant adaptation

• A combination of flexibility, new participants
  innovation has enabled traffickers to maintain a
  steady flow of drugs

New participants

• Inexhaustible with high replacement rates

Innovative

• Technological sophistication counter
  intelligence etc.

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The challenge is for law enforcement to adapt

• Diversity and flexibility of trafficking groups,
  and their rapid response to interventions, is a
  major challenge
• Only by ensuring effective, coordinated action
  can we make a lasting impact on trafficking
  groups
• Law enforcement needs to evolve as quickly as the
  problem were tackling
• End to End Attack

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Joint HMCE/NCS operation 2003/4 Homespun/Freeze
400kgs Heroin
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400kgs Heroin concealed in cat litter imported
from Turkey
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6 charged, two guilty pleas -currently at trial
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The CIDA Delivery Strategy
Overarching Principles

• Need for more sophisticated understanding of how
  the market works
• From production, through transit to consumption
  in our communities and understanding the impact
• More effective co-ordination of activity
• Between supply side agencies and
• With demand side partners
• Better targeted activity achieving the biggest
  bang for our buck
• Clear focus on harm reduction

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Setting clear objectives

• Enhance our knowledge and understanding
• Increase the risks to traffickers and dealers
• Reduce production and processing
• Stifle drug markets nationally and
  internationally
• Disrupt supply networks
• Targeting people, powder and finances
• Achieving a sustained impact

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Key Tasks

• Measurement of impact
• Constructing outcome measures
• Improved targeting and co-ordination
• NIM and improved support for CIDA
• Prioritising activity across supply networks
• Action plans based on strategic assessment
• Testing the approach
• Piloting an end-to-end approach
• Street Level Up
• MMDP London

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Middle Market Drugs Project
19 arrests resulting in the seizure of 81 kilos
of cocaine 1 Kilo of crack cocaine 4 kilos of
heroin 50 kilos of cannabis 25,000 in cash
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Assessing the impact

• Focus on harm reduction requires a new approach
• Insufficient to focus purely on traditional
  outputs though these will continue to be
  important measures of activity
• Assessment will be on three levels
• Overarching Drug Harms Index, being developed by
  HO
• Enhanced output measures people, money, powder
• A new Supply Impact Measure

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What will success look like?

• We expect that success will result in
• Declining levels of purity
• Gradual reductions in perceptions of availability
  
• Long-term increases in price/short-term price
  volatility
• Short-term success may have negative impacts
• Increase in acquisitive crime
• Longer-term, success should be clear-cut
• Including getting more people into treatment
• Australia and Heroin

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Building the picture

• Still gaps in our knowledge of the market and how
  it works
• Need to have a better understanding to improve
  the targeting of our activity
• E.g. on choke-points or key vulnerabilities
• Re-orientation towards harm reduction means need
  for more specific/prioritised intelligence
  collection
• Intelligence is also a benefit in its own right
  not just a means towards an operational end

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Testing the approach

• Final strand of activity brings the separate
  elements together, to test the overall approach
• Using intelligence to improve our understanding
  of the market and to drive activity
• Assessing the impact of interventions
• Prioritising activity to meet greatest threats
• Piloting the Street Level Up approach
• Four pilot areas, multi-agency approach
• Targeted interventions, learning lessons

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Agencies are already working together to meet the
challenge

• Some recent successes
• Operation Airbridge
• Interventions in South America
• Capacity building in Afghanistan
• Proceeds of Crime Act
• Simultaneous interventions at different levels
• Focus on harm reduction

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Operation Airbridge

• Partnership between HMCE, Jamaican LE, UK Police,
  NCIS and supported by both Governments
• Interdiction outbound at Jamaican airports by the
  Jamaican Constabulary Force (JCF), supported by
  UK Customs, Police NCIS
• This has cut cocaine smuggling by ingestion from
  Jamaica direct to the UK

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Results

• Jamaica In excess of 300 detections since the
  operation began in 2002
• UK Detection decreased by more than 75
• Increased the cost and risk to smuggling
  organisations

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Go fasts

• Colombia to Jamaica 15 - 24 hours.
• 700 - 1500 kg pay load.

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Getting them to stop
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Cash and the drugs business

• The trafficking of drugs generates significant
  volumes of cash
• which then needs to be repatriated and
  legitimised
• Managing cash flows is vital to traffickers
• rely on current sales to pay for future imports
• rely on proceeds to pay debts
• The most challenging tasks are
• getting cash into the legitimate financial system
  
• moving cash across borders

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Operation Undulating
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CICFA

• The CICFA Working group works in support of the
  Multi Agency Assets Recovery Delivery Plan
• The Government has a Manifesto commitment to
  double the amount of recovered assets receipts
  from 29.5m in 1999/2000 to 60m in 2004/5
• Targets for the amount of recovered assets have
  been increased and are 80m in 2004/5 and 100m
  in 2005/6 currently on track

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CICFA membership

• Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO)
• Association of Chief Police Officers (Scotland)
• Police Service Northern Ireland (PSNI)
• H M Customs Excise
• National Crime Squad (NCS)
• National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS)
• Home Office
• Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)
• Inland Revenue
• Assets Recovery Agency (ARA)
• Department of Constitutional Affairs (DCA)
• Confiscation Enforcement Taskforce.

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CICFA role

• A multi agency group for step change.
• Personal commitment of the heads of the main
  LEAs.
• Full impact of POCA demands concerted activity in
  a single strategy.
• Its about crime reduction.

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Results

• Tin box receipts FY 03/04
• 54.5 million
• 1350 confiscation orders obtained FY 03/04
• 72.77 million
• Total cash seizures 31/12/02 to 31/03/04
• 63 million

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Where next?

• The strategy is a starting point, rather than an
  end point
• developing our understanding of the market and to
  respond to it in an intelligent way
• The strategy will not deliver improved
  performance by itself
• But it will enable us to work more effectively
  together to achieve a step change in performance
• Need to ensure ongoing development
• Markets will continue to change adapt, we
  cant afford to stand still

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Any Questions?
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• Putting the Drugs Business
• Out of Business

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Ministerial AddressCaroline Flint
MPParliamentary Under SecretaryAnti Drugs
Co-OrdinationandOrganised Crime
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• Putting the Drugs Business
• Out of Business

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Plenary SessionChaired byNeil Bennett
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• Putting the Drugs Business
• Out of Business

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Conference CloseAndy HaymanChief Constable,
Norfolk ConstabularyChair of ACPO Drugs Committee
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• Putting the Drugs Business
• Out of Business