Praise for Leicestershire Police as it receives 'outstanding' rating for tackling serious and organised crime

An ‘outstanding’ rating has been awarded to Leicestershire Police for tackling serious and organised crime.

The report, issued by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS), has graded the force at the highest level, praising its ‘integrated approach’ and ‘effective’ management of tackling serious organised crime.

Other report highlights included its use of analytical work to achieve successful outcomes, innovation in identifying and tackling foreign national offenders, the pursuit of organised criminals by targeting their assets and the force’s work with partners on crime prevention.

There was also praise for its ‘Are You Listening?’ campaign to raise awareness of child criminal exploitation and improve how it works with partners to identify and safeguard vulnerable children.

The report also detailed the force’s development of Operation Orbis Linea to perform bulk data searches and analysis – and using this to find vehicles used by foreign national offenders. Since October 2020, the operation has resulted in 209 individuals arrested; around £9m in criminal assets seized and 10 high-risk sex offenders from overseas identified and under investigation.

Also recognised was its Economic Crime Unit, to tackle the issue of people being exploited to launder money on another person’s behalf and to identify vulnerable victims of economic crime. The force has established an online eBay account to dispose of criminal property that is forfeited. The money this approach raises is returned to the force through the Government’s asset recovery incentivisation scheme.

Chief Constable Rob Nixon said: “We are delighted to see the hard work and dedication of all of our officers and staff to tackle serious organised crime has been recognised in this way by HMICFRS.

“As the report has highlighted, a huge amount of work is carried out across all levels in force to both prevent and detect serious organised crime and to raise awareness of it. Thank you to every member of our team who is part of this work – your work really does make a difference!

“Of course, our work doesn’t stop here and as a force our commitment to develop, learn and improve in this area continues. We remain dedicated to further tackling this crime fully protecting our communities.”