Chinese offenders are linked to cyber, drugs, fraud, modern slavery and human trafficking crimes, while other nations, including North Korea, are committing offences such as money laundering
The UK is falling prey to international criminals involved in serious organised crime, the National Crime Agency has warned.
The biggest non-British threat comes from Chinese criminals, based both in China and the UK, the assessment said. “Chinese national offenders are linked to cyber, drugs, fraud, illicit finance, modern slavery and human trafficking and organised immigration crime offending that impacts on the UK,” the NCA’s annual National Strategic Assessment report found. It added: “It is likely that the already high threat from Chinese-speaking money laundering networks in the UK continues to grow. As well as moving cash for UK criminals, they help UK-based Chinese nationals to evade Chinese currency controls, which enables them to invest in the UK.”
Iran and Russia also allow certain crimes carried out from within their jurisdictions against the UK, including ransomware groups, which are out of the reach of Western law enforcement.
Some countries use offences including cybercrime, drug trafficking and money laundering to support their own objectives or evade sanctions, the assessment said, including North Korea.
The Mirror reported in December how the NCA led a global crackdown on a multi-billion pound Russian money laundering operation with tentacles into every part of the UK.
The NCA said in December its biggest such operation in a decade stretched “from McMafia, through to Narcos, through to Le Carre” with drugs gangs, cyber-criminals and spies working together “on a scale we’ve never previously seen”.
The international syndicate, headed by Ekaterina Zhdanova and Russian-born Ukrainian George Rossi, swapped cash from British street gangs for cyber-currency earned by Russian hackers.
British criminals used the cyber-currency to buy more drugs from South American cartels as well as weapons, fuelling more crime on our streets.
Their illicit cash was then laundered through businesses like launderettes and construction firms or smuggled out of the country by couriers.
It passed through a series of shell companies, often via Dubai. Some was used by Russian oligarchs to illegally bypass financial restrictions to buy assets in the UK, including property, the NCA said. The network also helped fund Russian espionage operations overseas.
Meanwhile, the NCA also warned in its annual report released on Tuesday that, in terms of drug use in the UK, the use of ketamine has risen sharply, according to wastewater analysis by the Home Office comparing January to April 2023 with the same period the following year.
Figures from tests that cover 18% of the population of England showed that while cocaine use rose 7%, ketamine consumption rose 85%, and heroin use dropped 11%.
The number of adults who needed medical treatment after taking ketamine rose by five times from 426 in 2014/15 to 2,211 in 2022/23.
It is cheaper than cocaine but can cause severe health problems including damage referred to as “ketamine bladder”, as well as causing a dissociative state when taken, which could leave the user at risk of physical harm, the NCA said.
