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FT 17 MAR 94 / Foreign gangs 'rule organised crime'
By STEWART DALBY
There is no single UK gang dominant in organised crime, the Commons home
affairs committee was told yesterday.
Home Office and Customs and Excise officials told the committee that,
leaving Northern Ireland aside, hundreds of crime syndicates were involved
in everything from extortion and lorry hijacking to drugs. But there was no
dominant group like the Mafia in Italy.
The main operators in the UK were often tentacles of international
syndicates like the Mafia, the Triads and the Colombian cartels.
These groups, increasingly joined by gangs from the former Soviet Union and
Eastern Europe, are often involved in drug trafficking and money laundering.
Estimating the extent of organised crime is hampered by the lack of a broad
definition in UK law of organised crime - such as that in the US law
against racketeering.
Officials defined organised crime as a group activity whose prime purpose is
the achievement of large-scale profits through criminal acts, which is
long-term and continuing and includes some form of self-perpetuating
criminal structure.
Home Office officials estimated that between Pounds 2.5bn and Pounds 4bn was
laundered in the UK in 1992. Customs and Excise officials estimated that in
the year to April 1993, the value of drugs prevented from entering the UK
was Pounds 896m. There were about 9,000 drug seizures and 47 drug rings were
broken up.
Countries:-
GBZ United Kingdom, EC.
Industries:-
P92 Justice, Public Order, and Safety.
Types:-
NEWS General News.
The Financial Times
London Page 8