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Europe - new material (54)

01 July 2011

Criminal Network, Gary Mason. Police Product Review, June/July 2011, pp. 21-22. While Europol has just entered its new headquarters in The Hague (Netherlands) and has the ambition to better address contemporary challenges, Mason looks at the functioning of the European law enforcement agency. Co-ordination between the 27 national law enforcement systems is not easy. Globalisation has opened new possibilities for criminal networks to “cover their tracks” through multiple identities or act under cover in different countries (e.g. shadow companies). Since its inception in 1995, Europol has developed two software systems where national data are pulled together to facilitate cooperation, in a more cost-effective way. The first database, the Information Exchange System (Info Ex) brings together information meant to be exchanged between EU Member States, Europol and third parties for the purpose of research and analysis of trans-national crime. The second, the Information System (IS) helps detect “hits” on different national records to facilitate cooperation for crime-related investigations especially the secure transmission of sensitive information. Indeed, Europol has a clear mandate framing its capacity to collect, process and exchange data and acts “as a fusion centre for intelligence” in the EU. In the UK, it is the Serious Organised Crime Agency (which will soon be incorporated into the forthcoming National Crime Agency) which acts as the Europol National Unit. See Chris Jones “All-seeing, all-knowing: the proposal for a National Crime Agency in the UK”, July 2011, available at http://www.statewatch.org/news/2011/jun/uk-nca.htm