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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, March 29, 2004

Britain unveils 'FBI' plan for organized crime

The British government was expected to publish a new strategy on Monday aimed at cracking down on organized crime that would give new powers to an elite FBI-style police force, the Sky News reported.


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The British government was expected to publish a new strategy on Monday aimed at cracking down on organized crime that would give new powers to an elite FBI-style police force, the Sky News reported.

British ministers were unveiling a White Paper setting out details of the new Serious and Organized Crime Agency (SOCA), which has been dubbed the "British FBI," reports said.

The White Paper would include details of new powers to help police reach previously untouchable "Mr. Bigs," and people such aslawyers and accountants could be forced to give information about gangster clients or face imprisonment themselves, reports added.

Entitled "One Step Ahead: A 21st Century Strategy to Defeat Organized Criminals," the White Paper would also include measures to make the use of phone-tap evidence admissible in court cases.

"Every means at our disposal should be examined in order to getwhat is now an international cross-boundary scourge tackled with the same tools as the people doing it are using against us," British Home Secretary David Blunkett told BBC Radio 4's Today Program.

SOCA will be an elite new law enforcement agency with about 5,000 investigators specializing in drug trafficking, people smuggling and fraud cases.

Its creation will be the biggest shake-up of the way British policing is organized since force boundaries in England and Wales were re-drawn 40 years ago.

SOCA, expected to be operational by 2006, will replace the National Crime Squad, the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the investigative arms of Customs and Excise and the immigration service.


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