Key facts
- The UK will recruit 500 officers to trace and seize criminal money.
- The initiative is backed by £500 million over three years.
- The funding comes from the economic crime levy on regulated firms.
- Officers will be deployed across police forces, the National Crime Agency, and the Crown Prosecution Service.
- The National Crime Agency estimates over £100 billion is laundered through the UK annually.
- The NCA plans to expand Operation Destabilise, targeting Russian-speaking crypto networks.
The UK government has announced a significant crackdown on money laundering, committing £500 million over three years to recruit 500 new officers. These officers will be spread across police forces, the National Crime Agency (NCA), and the Crown Prosecution Service to trace and seize criminal assets. The funding stems from the economic crime levy imposed on regulated firms and will support a new Anti-Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Strategy.
The NCA estimates that over £100 billion is laundered through the UK or its corporate structures annually. The Home Office noted that the threat has grown in recent years due to the rise of fintech, cryptocurrency, and artificial intelligence. The new initiative aims to build upon Operation Destabilise, an ongoing investigation into Russian-speaking networks that convert cash into crypto for organized crime groups. The NCA plans further arrests and seizures targeting networks that facilitate ransomware groups, hostile states, and the illegal drug trade.
Previously, the NCA's economic crime centre highlighted criminals' innovative use of crypto assets to move illicit value at scale. The agency sought to expand its successful Destabilise model and develop a more proactive, intelligence-led crypto capability. Cryptoassets are ranked third among the nine economic crime priorities agreed upon by the NCA, Treasury, and Financial Conduct Authority. Sal Melki, the NCA's deputy director for economic crime, acknowledged the increasing complexity of financial crime due to new technologies and stated the investment would fund an "innovative financial intelligence service for the UK" and enhance capacity to target criminals' financial infrastructure.
British agencies have previously collaborated with international partners on crypto-related investigations. Operation Atlantic, conducted with the US Secret Service, identified 20,000 victims of approval-phishing scams and resulted in the freezing of $12 million across major crypto exchanges like Coinbase, Binance, Kraken, and Tether within a week.