No deal Brexit – Excellent news for international criminals!
Whilst the New Prime Minister talks about reversing the cuts to the Police numbers made by his predecessor his ‘No deal Brexit’ will actually make life easier for criminals with the UK cut off from the rapid two-way flow of vital data about criminal activity. The newly trained Police officers will take several years to be effective, meanwhile access to SISII alerts will cease on 31 October!
The following are excerpts from the Guardian – 27 July 2019:
Organised criminals exploit our borders and judicial differences and increasingly relocate from jurisdictions where law enforcement capabilities are strong to reduce the chance of detection.
An increasing percentage of crime is cross-border and cross-jurisdictional and ever more complex to investigate and detect.
Once the UK leaves the EU, police forces will not have access to European arrest warrants, European investigation orders or the Schengen Information System II, which allows officers to enter and consult alerts on persons or objects.
A no-deal Brexit at the end of October is now a possibility, which means that the priority for ICCC, the [International Crime Bureau] and police forces should be to focus on the mitigation of increased risks due to the loss of access to SIS II alerts.” SIS II is the Schengen Information System database.
The Home Office has made available £5.6m to a Brexit contingency unit because of the dangers involved in a cliff-edge loss of access to EU security and criminal databases. [Former NCA deputy director general David Armond’s] report warns that “a key feature of crime, particularly serious organised crime, is that the perpetrators, the victims and the commodity are in different jurisdictions across the globe.