The new agency is tasked with combating organized crime networks and gangs

Oct 7, 2013 09:22 GMT  ·  By

The United Kingdom has launched the new National Crime Agency (NCA), dubbed by some the “British FBI.”

The law enforcement agency is tasked with pursuing organized crime, including cybercriminals, international fraudsters, cross-border criminal networks and gangs, and child abusers that hide in the deep web.

“The NCA is a UK-wide crime-fighting agency, which will have the capability to tackle serious and organised crime in areas that have previously had a fragmented response, such as the border, cyber and economic crime, and those where we need to increase our impact, like child protection and human trafficking,” commented Keith Bristow, the NCA’s director.

“The NCA will be at the centre of a reformed policing landscape that will co-ordinate the fight against some of the United Kingdom’s most sophisticated and harmful criminals,” Bristow added.

The agency employs over 4,000 officers. It has the powers and mandate to lead and coordinate other law enforcement agencies and the police.

The NCA has four commands, each of which focus on a certain crime category: Organized Crime, Border Policing and Child Exploitation and Online Protection, Economic Crime, and a National Cyber Crime Unit.

“I want to make Britain a hostile environment for serious and organised criminals, with the new National Crime Agency leading that fight,” Home Secretary Theresa May noted at the launch of the NCA.

“For the first time we now have a single national agency harnessing intelligence to relentlessly disrupt organised criminals at home and abroad with its own warranted officers, and the power to lead officers from other law enforcement agencies in coordinating that activity,” May added.

“The new National Crime Agency will mean that there will be no hiding places for human traffickers, cyber criminals and drugs barons.”