Organised Crime Division

Introduction

The CPS Organised Crime Division was established in 2005 in order to provide a one stop shop for investigators from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and its affiliate, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP). SOCA and CEOP are national law enforcement bodies and, like them, we have a national footprint with offices in London, Birmingham, Manchester and York.

Gregor McGill heads the Division and is accountable to the Director of Public Prosecutions. The Division deals with three types of CPS business: prosecution work, headed by Jo Jakymec; proceeds of crime work, headed by Jeremy Rawlins; and the CPS' international work headed by Patrick Stevens.

Prosecution Teams

Organised Crime Division has prosecution teams based in London, Birmingham, Manchester and York. Almost all of the prosecutions they bring stem from intelligence-led investigations, and it is a particular feature of their work that they are involved in advising from the outset of a criminal investigation. Indeed, fully two thirds of their caseload is made up of advice files - cases where no-one has yet been charged. This approach brings results: Her Majesty's CPS Inspectorate noted a high level of successful outcomes (convictions) in the Division's cases in its 2009 report.

The Division's ethos is to be proactive in the advice its lawyers give. They work with SOCA investigators in shaping the cases or in exploring the ways in which prosecutions might be brought against the targets of their investigations. So, to take a hypothetical example, if the investigation into suspected drug trafficking appears unlikely to generate sufficient evidence for charges, they will explore with SOCA other areas of potential criminality, such as fraud or money laundering.

The law enforcement landscape has changed since 2005, and the CPS has changed with it. UKBA is now a national law enforcement body with responsibilities in the fields of both immigration and illegal commodities, such as drugs and guns. Organised Crime Division now takes on the most complex UKBA work.

Proceeds of Crime Unit

Based in London, the Proceeds of Crime Unit deals with the confiscation aspects of our prosecutions. It is involved in obtaining confiscation orders after defendants have been convicted. It also obtains restraint and receivership orders, sometimes at the outset of the investigation, in order to ensure that defendants do not dissipate their assets before a confiscation order can be made. And once confiscation orders have been made, it enforces those orders, so that offenders do not benefit from their criminality.

This is specialist area of legal practice, and the unit also deals with the more complex proceeds of crime aspects of cases being prosecuted by the other Central Casework Divisions, most often from the Central Fraud Group. As such, a large part of our work comes from HM Revenue and Customs, the City of London Police and Metropolitan Police Service.

The Proceeds of Crime Unit's work is not limited to prosecution-related casework but extends to civil litigation too. Since 2008 the Director of Public Prosecutions has had the power to investigate cases with a view to bringing civil recovery proceedings in the High Court. There is a small number of such cases in the unit, and in 2010 it obtained our first civil recovery order.

Press releases related to Organised Crime

As the Organised Crime Division works closely with SOCA, press releases are sometimes agreed jointly with and issued by SOCA. Some of the links below therefore link to documents held on SOCA's website.

Further resources

'The new challenges to organised crime prosecution'

Text of a text of a speech given in May 2011 by Alun Milford, Head of the Organised Crime Division, to a conference on Organised Crime in May 2011.

Assistance by UK Prosecutors - 2nd edition

Guidance for prosecutors and other authorities, particularly abroad, wishing to recover proceeds of crime from within UK jurisdiction (Opens as PDF document in new window).