National partnerships
SOCA was designed and set up to operate in partnership. Our partners range from law enforcement agencies to government departments, private sector companies, and victim support groups.
We have a duty to work with our UK law enforcement partners by providing a range of specialist services. We also help them where we are able on a wide range of operational activity.
SOCA is a partner along with the UK Border Agency, HM Revenue and Customs and the Association of Chief Police Officers, in the Organised Crime Partnership Board. This body helps deliver a more coordinated response to fighting crime.
Supporting our partners
Here’s a brief look at how our various specialist services support our partners:
- Interpol Bureau in the UK – our role is to help ensure that information about criminals wanted abroad is available to UK enforcement authorities for action.
- Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) – these help protect financial institutions and others from allegations of money laundering, but also provide a bigger picture of criminal activity. They can assist in identifying and locating the proceeds of crime, as well as identifying links between unknown individuals and well-known criminals. Information arising from SARs has been made available to all UK Police Financial Investigation Units, the Department of Work and Pensions, HM Revenue and Customs, the Serious Fraud Office, the Ministry of Defence Police, and others.
- Specialist Firearms Services - SOCA has experienced investigators who are trained in the use of firearms, including specialist strategic and tactical firearms commanders. SOCA deploys these resources in its own investigations and, on request, to law enforcement partners in England and Wales. Officers are proficient in armed surveillance, armed rural surveillance and other bespoke covert armed deployments.
- The SOCA Chemical Control Team – this processes information from the chemical industry concerning suspicious chemical activity that might involve illegal drugs. We routinely deal with requests from external partners, including HM Revenue and Customs, the Home Office and the European Commission.
- The National Central Office for the Suppression of Counterfeit Currency and Protected Coins – this is the UK’s centre for identifying trends in counterfeiting activity. It analyses thousands of reports from police forces and the Bank of England each year to help protect the UK against the damage caused by counterfeit bank notes and coins.
- The SOCA Illicit Laboratory Unit – this is the only fully operational team in the UK with the ability to dismantle any synthetic drugs production environment. It also provides a 24/7 advice service for chemical and contamination issues.
- Our Counter Corruption Department – this provides ongoing support for police forces and partner corruption investigations, and offers the only training course in the UK for dealing with corruption.
- Our Anti Kidnap and Extortion Unit – this investigates and looks to prevent kidnap, blackmail and product contamination. It’s frequently contacted by law enforcement agencies across the world for assistance. It has also been involved in the preparation of a kidnap manual for the United Nations.
Other ways of helping our partners
- Over 10% of SOCA’s operational resources in the last financial year were used to provide tactical support for partners, mostly individual police forces. We received over 350 requests, and were able to meet over 80% of these.
- We are contributing staff and resources to ten Regional Intelligence Units across the country. These will give partners access to SOCA intelligence, helping to close information gaps and squeeze the space in which criminals can operate.
- SOCA Community Liaison Officers are based in every region to support local operational relationships.
Find out more now
You can read more about our work with partners in our Annual Report (7.31 MB PDF)
Where possible we have included downloadable files in Adobe PDF format. To view these files you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader which you can download free from Adobe’s website:
