FAQ Details
Economic Crime Units - 143/11
Dated: 07 Jun 2011
Date of request: 17/02/2011
Date of response: 03/03/2011
Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')
Thank you for your letter dated 17 February 2011 in which you made a request for access to certain information which may be held by Northumbria Police.
As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.
You asked:
How many economic crime units your police force had in 2008, 2009 and currently.
How many investigations the economic crime units carried out in 2008, 2009 and 2010.
A list of the different types of crimes investigated by the economic crime units, including the numbers of each crime investigated.
How many successful prosecutions the economic crime units achieved.
In response:
We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I provide a response for your attention.
Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Crime Department of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.
I have today decided to disclose the located information to you in part as follows, as the below is the best information we can supply from the systems used.
This will not include any investigations which did not lead to confiscation proceedings being initiated. Basically lots of investigations whether it be fraud or major crime etc may have Financial Investigators (FI) involvement but are not routinely recorded as such. We also use FI's on occasions to assist in locating vulnerable people or persons wanted, but again this information is not recorded.
Number of Successful Prosecutions | 169 | 160 | 205 |
2008 | 2009 | 2010 | |
Number of Economic Crime Units | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Number of Investigations Carried Out | 340 | 496 | 481 |
Types of Crime Investigated | |||
| Arms Trafficking | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Burglary/Theft | 36 | 63 | 56 |
| Counterfeiting/Intellectual Property/Forgery | 4 | 12 | 13 |
| Drug Trafficking | 166 | 222 | 235 |
| Excise Duty Fraud | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| Handling | 4 | 13 | 14 |
| Money Laundering - Drugs | 35 | 17 | 19 |
| Money Laundering - Other | 40 | 52 | 58 |
| Other Crime | 11 | 17 | 14 |
| Other Fraud/Embezzlement/Deception/Crimes of Dishonesty | 20 | 80 | 49 |
| People Traficking | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Pimps and Brothels/Prostitution/Pornography | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 6 | 7 |
| Tax and Benefit Fraud | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Unknown | 16 | 8 | 11 |
| Vehicle Offences | 0 | 1 | 2 |
The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not re-use this information for any commercial purpose.
How to complain
If you are unhappy with our decision or do not consider that we have handled your request properly and we are unable to resolve this issue informally, you are entitled to make a formal complaint to us under our complaints procedure which can be found at: http://www.northumbria.police.uk/foi/disclosurelog/foicomprights.asp
If you are still unhappy after we have investigated your complaint and reported to you the outcome, you may complain directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office and request that they investigate to ascertain whether we have dealt with your request in accordance with the Act.
Yours sincerely
Michael Cleugh
Data Protection and Disclosure Advisor
Direct Dial: 01661 868347