One to watch: Operation Elveden

Daily Mail Article: Senior Met Detective Charged

and then, last month, she pleads "Not Guilty".  Operation Elveden: DCI April Casburn in court
Detective Chief Inspector April Casburn, 53, has been charged with "misconduct in public office".  She is former head of the secretive National Terrorist Financing Investigation Unit and would have had access to the output from the regulated sector's Suspicious Activity reporting regime.
She has become the first person to be charged under Operation Elveden inquiry into bribing of officials as she is alleged to have offered information to the now defunct "News of the World" newspaper back in September 2010.

I'm going to be keeping an eye on this case as it develops.  It's central to this blog's raison d'etre.

No Oversight Please! We Are the Met Police

According to the story in today's Sunday Telegraph, the UK's Metropolitan Police has had the operational capability to eavesdrop on mobile (or Cell) telephone conversations since 1997 using a number of fixed wing aircraft, the very existence of which may have been deliberately hidden from the public or their representatives.

A Cessna F04

The trouble appears to be that the people who paid for it and were subject to it did not have a clue that this was happening, until today that is.

Let me quote from the article directly:

"However members of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), which scrutinises the force's spending said they had never been told of the existence of the aircraft.

According to Civil Aviation Authority records, the aircraft is registered to a firm called Nor Leasing.

There is no trace of the firm on any other official record and its business address registered with the CAA is actually a branch of Mail Boxes Etc, which offers a virtual office services and mail forwarding, in Surbiton, south-west London. "

Now this story breaks after recent allegations that an undercover Met Officer used his false name, under oath, during the trial of campaigning / activist groups who the Police (Politicians?) deem to be a potential threat to public order.


Now operationally, as in any totalitarian state, such an intelligence gathering capability when coupled with a flagrant disregard for the rule of law. is very, very useful.  But are such activities supervised or authorised outside of the cosy world of the Met Police?

I am begining to be very concerned that rather than actively policing the bad guys, the Met may have been policing any one who did not agree with  the last Labour Government.  E.G. Damian Green MP, the Policing of the Pro-Tibetan campaigners, any one that did not agree with the Iraq war etc etc.

So here are some questions I think that the MPA might light to ask, given that they appear to be some 14 years behind what the met Police have been upto:

• Who authorised the payment and running of these assets?
• When did they do this?
• What was the case for doing this?
• Why are they covert and not subject to scrutiny by the MPA or vetted sub-committee?
• Who ran these assets?
• What have they been doing?
• Who oversaw the operations and approved them?
• Did they breach the Data Protection Act?
• Have these operations been subject to Judicial oversight?
• Have they been subject to Political oversight?

Not good boys, not good at all.

Related articles

• Met chief says officers' use of fake identities in court was not illegal (guardian.co.uk)
• Undercover policing report delayed (mirror.co.uk)
• Undercover police inquiry delayed after new allegations (guardian.co.uk)
• Former police spy urges public inquiry into undercover operations (guardian.co.uk)
• You: Police spies unit 'crossed the line', says Lord MacDonald (guardian.co.uk)

Met Police Human Trafficking unit under threat

Image via Wikipedia

The Metropolitan Police's (Met) Human Trafficking Team was set up in 2007 and is now threatened with disbandment (again) with a proposal for their work to be given to other Met officers. As far as I can tell, the reason behind this proposal appears to be a money saving exercise.

The unit appears to be the victim of the old problem that specialisation costs.

A decision is expected within the next few weeks. You can find a link to a Press Association article here: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5jGCErLyU7Jbqj0EoNb2j9D7bzZEA

Why have I picked this story out? Because in July 2009, SOCA published it's 2009/10 UK Organised Crime threat Assessment. The report identifies five general areas of concern of which Human Trafficking falls under Organised immigration crime is a key area of concern. FYI the map is of the US Human Trafficking picture. In theory, the UK then aligns its response to such criminal activity sector by sector.

If the Met go ahead with this decision, my concerns would be as follows:

1 The Labour Government of the UK will talk about harm reduction strategies, but will not fund them properly. Here Labour have form with their inadequate funding of the war in Afghanistan.

2 The message to human traffickers will be sent out that the risk of being caught and prosecuted in the UK has reduced. Thus making the UK a more attractive target on a risk assessed basis.

Since human trafficking is thought to be the third most profitable activity in the organised crime world (after illegal drugs and arms trafficking) one would expect professional money launderer to get busier!

Do you agree?

Let me know your thoughts.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Keep trafficking unit, Met urged (news.bbc.co.uk)