SOCA in drugs admission
Updated on 26 January 2007
Head of Serious Organised Crime Agency admits 'potential loophole' in UK drugs defences.
Channel 4 News has seen an internal document from the Serious Organised Crime Agency in which its Director General describes a "potential loophole in the UK defences against drug importation".
The document was emailed to staff at the agency known as SOCA after a Channel 4 News report earlier this week in which SOCA insiders described it as "paralysed by bureaucracy".
The report revealed that staff were concerned and disillusioned and that SOCA had only investigated a fraction of the drug cases referred to it.
Following the Channel 4 News report, the Director General of SOCA, Bill Hughes emailed staff at the agency. Channel 4 News has seen a copy of that email in which Mr Hughes says: "The picture presented of systematic under achievement is not one I recognise, nor is it true."
But he goes on to admit that: "Because we are a new agency, and there are operational issues to bottom out, inevitably there are likely to be teething difficulties."
Crucially, he says: "The action of raising this potential loophole in the UK defences against drug importation is very serious. The UK simply does not have the resources to investigate every seizure at the ports, and this disclosure simply highlights where law enforcement can be circumvented."
Mr Hughes does not specify the nature of this loophole, but the original Channel 4 News report included a claim from the union that represents SOCA staff that only around 10 of some 300 cases referred to the agency had been accepted for investigation.
And a spokesman for the Police Federation spoke of a "major gap" in enforcement.
SOCA was launched in April 2006 by the Prime Minister and the then Home Secretary Charles Clarke. It incorporates the National Crime Squad, the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the investigations divisions of the Customs and Immigration Services. Its brief is to tackle organised crime including human trafficking, money laundering and fraud. But its biggest priority is to combat the smuggling of hard drugs.
SOCA is "operationally independent" from the Home Office, but the Home Secretary, John Reid, is responsible for setting its priorities.
In a statement in response to our report, SOCA said: "We do not comment on documents that may have been leaked.
"We believe that the UK's arrangements provide strong protection - HMRC, IND, SOCA and ACPO forces work together to detect and prevent criminals from entering the country and conducting criminal businesses across the frontier.
"SOCA has been established to tackle the threats caused by organised crime. This naturally means that we need to prioritise our efforts, with partners, in those areas where we believe we will have the greatest impact. We are pleased with the results achieved to date. Without commenting on specific operational activity, we continue to exploit the full range of opportunities to achieve our ends, including those as a result of frontier work.
"The seizures referred to here often relate to relatively small quantities of drugs, by comparison to very large amounts that SOCA and its partners are able to remove by working in other ways."
