Organised crime 'growing'

Internet fraud is on the increase

Organised crime in the UK is growing and affects everything from rural communities to the money markets, a report has revealed.

The National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) has analysed the threat of organised crime which it estimates is worth billions of pounds a year.

Its effects can be seen in our school playgrounds, on our PC screens, from Lands End to John O'Groats

John Abbott, NCIS

The report concludes that fraud on the internet and trafficking in illegal immigrants and drugs are particularly on the rise.

The detailed findings of the report are classified but the director general of the NCIS John Abbott said organised crime was "big business".

The report will be circulated to police forces and other law enforcement bodies, such as Interpol.

'Murky activity'

Mr Abbott said: "The activities of organised crime threaten the economic and social fabric of the country, its tentacles reaching into the deepest and most remote crevices of our way of life.

"Its effects can be seen in our school playgrounds, on our PC screens, from Lands End to John O'Groats."

He said that there was nothing glamorous about organised crime and that for far too long it had "benefited from the cover that its murky activity provides".

Typical areas associated with organised crime, said the report, were drugs, armed robbery, benefit fraud and revenue evasion, art and antiques.