BRITAIN'S FBI 'IS A DISMAL FAILURE'

Britain's answer to the FBI, the Serious Organised Crime Agency
(Soca), has been branded a disaster by the law enforcement chief whose
proposals in 2003 led to its creation.

Terry Byrne, former director-general for law enforcement at Customs &
Excise, said the agency was failing and its performance was "dismal".
He added: "The agency is claiming to have seized 84 tons of cocaine
across the world, yet the availability of cocaine in the UK is at an
all-time high and street prices at an all-time low. This is not the
agency I envisaged and I would not have proposed the transfer of
Customs drugs responsibilities and resources to such an organisation
if I had known how it was going to be so ill-directed."

Launched in April 2006, Soca took over responsibilities from the
National Crime Squad, Customs, MI5 and the National Criminal
Intelligence Service. Its director-general, Bill Hughes, has dismissed
criticism of its lack of high-profile success, saying it was in "a
marathon, not a sprint".

For the first two years Soca's prime focus was on a list of 130 "Mr
Bigs" of UK crime. Mr Byrne asked: "How professional was Soca
intelligence if it took nearly two years to identify that some were
dead, incarcerated or low-level criminals doing little damage?"