SMASTA prioritises Scotland's partnership approach to tackling serious organised crime
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It also identifies the impact serious organised crime has on Scottish communities, the threats and emerging trends and how the harm caused by serious organised criminals can be reduced.
The threat from organised criminals is ever present and combatting their activities remains a priority for the members of Scotland’s Serious Organised Crime Taskforce. There are 97 active organised crime groups (OCGs) operating in Scotland, comprising of 1,827 individuals, being actively investigated. These groups are involved in a wide range of criminal activity – including drugs, human trafficking, immigration, fraud, money laundering and more increasingly cyber and environmental crimes.
Most (61%) OCGs are located in the west of Scotland. 21% are found in the east and the remainder (18%) in the north of the country.
Police Scotland’s Assistant Chief Constable and Chair of the Scottish Multi-agency Tasking and Delivery Board, Andy Freeburn said: “The members of the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce, based at the Scottish Crime Campus, are committed to detecting and disrupting the activities of serious and organised criminals. We aim to make Scotland a hostile and uncomfortable environment for organised criminals to operate and prevent them from preying on our communities.
"At every opportunity our Taskforce seeks to remove their influence and ill-gotten gains by making best use of our combined powers, skills and resources. Working together, we are more than the sum of our parts and have proved this by disrupting one third of the active organised crime groups in Scotland over the past year.
"We clearly have more work to do and the launch of our threat assessment today provides a programme of work for all of the partners at the Crime Campus to progress and achieve even greater success over the next year.”
Justice Secretary Keith Brown said: “The threat from organised criminals is ever present and combatting their activities remains a priority for the Scottish Government and members of Scotland’s Serious Organised Crime Taskforce.
“I want to see a Scotland where we all work together to reduce the harm caused by serious organised crime and a partnership approach is the right way to achieve that aim. Harm reduction will benefit our communities, businesses and every one of us.
“Publication of the Scottish Multi-Agency Strategic Threat Assessment will be used to help us prioritise our actions and raise awareness of the key threats we face.
“The Scottish Government will continue to work closely with law enforcement agencies and other partners in Scotland to identify actions, mechanisms and if appropriate legislative steps to tackle organised crime and reduce the harm they cause to our communities.”
