According to SOCA, the most damaging sectors of organised crime are drugs trafficking, organised immigration crime and fraud. E-crime is seen as a ‘tool' for a number of areas of the criminal world and is increasingly being used to progress a variety of criminal acts, including the distribution of illegal images and goods across the UK and Europe.
One type of online crime which often requires the manpower of an organised gang is fraud. In April 2006, the Government suffered the first annual fall in VAT revenue since the tax was introduced, largely due to MTIC (missing trader intra-community) fraud. This type of fraud falls into two main categories.
‘Carousel Fraud' is where goods have been sold on in the UK, and then get sold through a series of transactions to another county. The same goods then re-enter the UK, but the fraudster will go missing without paying any VAT to Customs. ‘Acquisition Fraud' involves the fraudster obtaining a VAT registration number for the purpose of purchasing goods VAT free from another country. The goods are then sold in the UK at a VAT inclusive price, but the tax is never paid to customs and the fraudster disappears.
There is also the question of what could be described as more serious crimes, where criminals use the online world to launder money to fund other activities or to communicate with one another. According to Bill Hughes, the director of SOCA, "people need to recognise that IT is not just used by specialised offenders to commit crime, but also by organised criminals engaged in conventional offences, such as drugs or people trafficking"
SOCA's aim is to try and combat these organised criminals, but they are facing a mammoth task in first identifying and then seeking out these elusive creatures.
A further complicating issue is the lack of evidence for e-crime, due to police reporting procedures, meaning that it is a challenge for any realistic statistics to be produced to document this phenomenon.
Despite these setbacks, the net is hopefully closing in on these gangs with a review of e-crime reporting pointing towards the emphasis being taken away from local police and being put in the hands of highly trained centralised units. This proposed web portal will mirror the current system in the US, where victims of online crimes find it much easier to report problems.