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Main article: UK
2024
Hackers disabling tracking system and panic buttons in UK AutoButtons
In early November 2024, a cyber attack on Microlise left British prison vans without tracking and alarm systems, although it is assumed that the criminals did not try to take advantage of the situation. Read more here
Lack of prison space
The new Labour government in July 2024 faces a high burden on the prison system in its early days in power. Prisons in England and Wales are 98% full, and there are only about one and a half thousand empty places left.
The Keir Starmer government is forced to resort to urgent measures to rectify the situation. New Justice Minister Shabana Mahmoud has announced a reduction in the minimum threshold for parole from 50% of time served to 40%.
In addition, it is planned to expand the ability to replace real terms with conditional or send to forced labor.
The new initiative would estimate the early release of more than 10,000 offenders.
The growing influence of the Albanian drug mafia
British media in July 2024 are concerned about a new trend: mini-plantations for cultivation appear en masse in rented estates and mansions. cannabis They are discovered by immigrants from, massively gushing to the Albania shores of the island several years ago.
The scheme is simple: criminal gangs rent a house away from civilization, somewhere in the suburbs of Birmingham, and equip it for a drug factory. Even in London, police recorded 1,056 similar cases between 2018 and 2023.
One such farm can produce up to three harvests a year with incomes ranging from £750,000 to £ million. How can you not remember the village of Lazarat near Girokastra in Albania itself, whose inhabitants made a fortune growing hemp? The annual harvest was worth about six billion dollars to drug traffickers, nearly half of Albania's own GDP.
And if earlier, to organize such a business in Britain, Albanians needed at least to find an industrial facility or a production warehouse, then by 2024 they stopped standing on ceremony.
Entering Western markets as couriers and distributors, Albanians quickly crushed them under themselves. Interestingly, the business of Albanian drug dealers could not even kill the COVID-19 pandemic, the volume of marijuana supplied in 2020 and 2021 was still measured in tons. Moreover, in Albania itself, the "war with marijuana" security forces have been waging since 2014. However, despite all efforts, the volume of grown hemp has recently grown 12 times, or 1200%.
As for the UK government, which declared war on Albanian illegals crossing the Channel in boats in 2022, obviously did not save Rishi Sunak's inicitiav. According to the official statements of the authorities, it made it possible to reduce the number of Albanian migrants by 90%, but operational reports tell us something completely different. Moreover, they say that the Albanian organized crime groups have already taken control of the cocaine market in Britain.
2023: 5x increase in shoplifting to 5.6m
In 2023, the number of thefts in small British stores reached approximately 5.6 million, a new record. This is more than five times higher than the previous year, when approximately 1.1 million incidents were recorded. The corresponding figures are provided in a report by the British Association of Convenience Stores, which was published on March 4, 2024.
Retailers are investing heavily in systems to prevent and detect crime, the study said. In 2023, a total of about £339 million ($435.89 million at the exchange rate as of March 9, 2024) was spent in such areas as video surveillance, expansion of security units, security alarms and intercom systems. At the same time, on average, thefts cost store owners £4946 (approximately $6360) per year (in 2023).
In addition, it is noted that in 2023, approximately 76 thousand cases of violence in stores were recorded against 41 thousand cases in 2022. About 87% of employees in UK convenience stores have experienced verbal abuse. Two-thirds of local retailers (67%) believe that the cost of living crisis has led to an increase in theft. And more than three-quarters of respondents (76%) said organized crime had become more prevalent in 2023.
In most cases, theft and violence in small British shops is committed by persons with alcohol or drug addiction. The problem of rising crime rates, as they say, not only affects the already difficult financial situation of the retailers' business, but also poses a threat to the safety of employees and customers.
 | Retailers face an onslaught of crimes against their businesses on a daily basis, with some losing tens of thousands of pounds a year to theft alone, says James Lowman, chief executive of the British Walking Distance Shops Association[1] |  |
2022
In Malaga, police smashed a British gang sending drugs to their homeland and EU countries
The gang specialized in making false bottoms for shipping containers. The leader of the group is wanted by courts in the United Kingdom and has extensive experience in policing.
Police Spain officers in December 2022 arrested six people who were experts in concealing huge numbers drugs to be sent to other countries, Europe particularly Britain.
They even had a scanner similar to those used by airport security to check if drugs they had hidden in fake shipping container bases would be found somewhere on the way.
Gang members are accused of creating a criminal gang, drug trafficking, forgery and identity theft. One of them had more than €150,000 in cash and fake documents when he was caught.
The group was based in an area in Alaurín de la Torre, where they reportedly modified containers that are used for ship transport to create a false bottom in which drugs could be hidden.
They then took the drug containers to a warehouse in the Guadalorce industrial estate and loaded them into a truck. These containers were then transported by sea to Britain.
During a search of the premises, materials and equipment for making a double bottom in containers were found. There, the criminals kept the scanner.
In total, the Civil Guard seized 900 kg of hashish, more than 40 kg of marijuana buds and 13 vehicles, and closed an indoor marijuana plantation that grew more than 1,700 plants.
The gang's ringleader is reportedly wanted by courts in Britain and has long been tried by police for similar offences.
Arrest of 100 people for phone number substitution services for scammers
Main article: Telephone fraud
Investigators in Britain have discovered a site that offered customers phone number substitution services. Through this site, thousands of scammers from different countries were engaged in calling their victims, paying for the services of spoofing numbers with crypt.
Potential victims were contacted, posing as employees of well-known banks or government agencies. In Britain alone, more than 200,000 people suffered from such calls, and the damage is estimated at least $3.9 million.
Police officers hacked into the site's database and obtained information about 59,000 users. In November 2022, 100 people have already been arrested.
2021
British officials transferred £21bn to fraudsters in 2 years due to inaccessibility of the necessary data
In the first two years of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, that is, in 2020-2021, British officials have listed approximately £21 billion ($26.51 billion at the exchange rate as of February 13, 2024) for fraudsters requesting funds for various fictitious support programs. The reason lies primarily in the inaccessibility of the information necessary to check incoming cases. This is stated in a report by the National Audit Office of Britain (NAO), published on February 8, 2024.
It is noted that two years before the height of COVID-19, the amount of fraud recorded in financial documents checked by supervisory authorities was approximately £5.5 billion ($6.94 billion). Thus, at the peak of the spread of coronavirus, this figure almost quadrupled. The main problem is the lack of coordinated data exchange between various government structures. Government organizations use different approaches to data management, and the information itself is scattered across central and local authorities. In this case, different software and hardware may be used, as a result of which the same information has a different representation, which leads to incompatibility.
The Public Sector Fraud Office (PSFA) estimates that Britain's total public spending fraud could have reached £58.8 billion ($74.22 billion) during the 2020-2021 financial year, matching the height of the COVID-19 outbreak. Out-of-date systems and out-of-date data "pose complex practical challenges when sharing information," it says.
The NAO recommends that the Central Office for Digital Technology and Data at the Cabinet Office work with government and PSFA departments to find out which existing sets of information can help verify the legality of payments and tackle fraud. In addition, verify that these databases are compatible.[2]
Low number of premeditated murders
and
2019
The Firearms Trade on the Dark Web
The minimum age of imprisonment for children is 10 years
Criminal liability in England and Wales and in 2024 comes from 10 years.
1903
Notes
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