SCOTLAND is to get an FBI-style crime fighting agency which will gather together several key law enforcement agencies on one site, it emerged last night.
Scottish Executive ministers are drawing up plans for the £40m organisation to tackle the "growing and evolving threat from serious and organised crime".
Set to be called Socas - the Serious Organised Crime Agency for Scotland - it will be based
in a purpose-built headquarters at Gartcosh, North Lanarkshire.
If approved, Socas will house the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency (SDEA), as well as Strathclyde Police’s forensic science department. It is understood the Scottish arm of the National Crime Intelligence Service, some prosecutors from the Crown Office, Customs & Excise north of the Border and Immigration Service workers could also relocate to the site.
An Executive spokeswoman said work on the "crime campus" could start as early as next year, with completion expected in 2006/07.
"Given the growing and evolving threat from serious and organised crime, we cannot rest on our laurels," she said. "We must continually look to new ways to meet this challenge and believe that bringing all the key law enforcement agencies together on one campus is a necessary step in strengthening the way Scotland deals with this threat.
"The creation of the proposed centre of excellence should send out a strong message to international criminal networks that Scotland is not a soft target.
"While discussions about the new centre of excellence are still at an early stage, we have set aside significant resources to enable planning to get under way."
Under the plans, the SDEA, established four years ago, would relocate its HQ, which employs around 180 staff, to the new facility.
Ministers believe bringing the SDEA and other key law enforcement agencies under one roof would yield successful results.
It would give rise to operational benefits and efficiencies from joint working and the sharing of expertise, facilities and resources, as well as create a "more effective, strengthened and co-ordinated response" to organised crime.
The SDEA is headed by Graeme Pearson, who has already visited the headquarters of the American FBI in Washington DC - the J Edgar Hoover Building - in order to see how the new crime-fighting body might be organised.
Pearson said: "Our organisation is designed to stop the worst excesses of what we see in the type of Sopranos fiction.
"The bottom line is that there should be no Sopranos in Scotland, we cannot have the type of firm that thinks it can do as it likes.
"We need to go back a few chapters to ensure that crime organisations like that cannot get a foothold in Scotland."
Other specialist crime-fighting units, including the Scottish Witness Liaison Unit, the Scottish Money Laundering Unit, and the National High-Tech Crime Unit are also expected to operate from the new base.
It is understood that Gartcosh was chosen because of its good transport links to Glasgow, Edinburgh and Stirling.
A major target of the new agency will be freezing the assets of top crime lords and gangster bosses. So far the SDEA and Scottish police forces have already frozen £18m of criminal assets.
In addition to fighting organised crime, it has also been suggested that the new force could take over major criminal inquiries from local police forces and offer assistance to them. It has also been indicated that the force could take control of the Scottish Police Training College and helicopter surveillance teams.
VANDALS and shoplifters are to escape a court appearance and instead be let off with a fine as part of a major cost-cutting exercise aimed at saving the government millions of pounds.
Under the plan, petty offenders will be given fines and compensation orders by fiscals instead of having to go through a lengthy and expensive court appearance.
Scottish Executive documents show that the controversial plan has been earmarked as part of Jack McConnell’s much-vaunted "efficiency drive", launched earlier this year.
When the efficiency drive was unveiled, ministers said it would focus on administrative savings and back-office costs as a way of delivering more funds to front-line services. It now appears that far wider cost-cutting measures are being included so ministers meet their targets.
