Law enforcement
National Business Crime Solution tackles foreign national offending
The National Business Crime Solution (NBCS), winner of the Retail Risk award for Best Crime Partnership 2016, has recently met with several member businesses to look at how it can support retailers to tackle the growing issue of foreign national offending.
Offences involving foreign nationals now constitute just under a third of all NBCS investigations. Evidence shows that these teams travel extensively across the UK mainly targeting branded fashion items and alcohol and often costing businesses over £1000 each time.
The NBCS has for some time been tracking several prolific teams and has been working with senior police leads, Immigration, Border Control and other partners to get these offences escalated and is working with Immigration to maximise the opportunities for disruption. In one recent investigation the NBCS successfully helped to deport one offender known to be costing businesses in excess of £50,000.
NBCS briefings have been used in a recent presentation at Europol and have led to constabularies such as Kent and Essex to utilise this intelligence as part of daily tasking leading to several arrests and the force establishing links with other types of organised crime therefore providing NBCS members with the opportunity to evidence that these offences go far beyond ‘petty shop theft’.
Attendees at the meeting called for a collaborative response to addressing this type of crime and asked the NBCS to help them overcome the issue of an inconsistent response from police forces across the country when dealing with these organised crime teams.
Following consultation with national police leads, the NBCS encouraged businesses affected by these crimes to share all information with the NBCS, taking photocopies of offenders ID cards where they can. Members were also encouraged to share details of any planned surveillance so that the NBCS could raise this with forces and ensure that the addresses/teams of interest are not the subject of any ongoing police investigations.
The NBCS agreed to work with several member businesses recently affected by one particular prolific team to pull together a victim impact statement which would show the extent of the offending and to evidence the scale of the losses. This would then be used to help overcome some of the challenges with localised police outcomes where offenders are released on no further charge despite a wealth of evidence showing they are prolific and also in spite of the fact the NBCS had successfully raised this with Immigration for further action.
The NBCS continues to work with senior police leads, the Home Office, Immigration, Border Control and the National Crime Agency to ensure that the impact this type of organised crime is having on NBCS member businesses is fully understood. Further discussions with key stakeholders are ongoing with a view to the NBCS holding a business roundtable early next year which will bring together all partners to explore how collaboration via the NBCS can make the UK a hostile environment for this type of crime.
For further information, contact Catherine Bowen at Catherine.bowen@nationalbusinesscrimesolution.com
