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West Yorkshire Police may miss regional unit deadline
West Yorkshire Police could team up with three other forces to set up a new regional organised crime unit.
Home Office chiefs want forces across the country to pool resources in a bid to fight multi-billion pound global organised crime gangs.
Organised criminals trafficking in drugs and people, fraud and financial crime cost the UK Exchequer in the region of 30 billion a year.
The West Yorkshire force is investigating setting up an organised crime unit in conjunction with forces in North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and Humberside.
Whitehall chiefs are demanding that police forces across the country have "specialist operational ability to support their regional intelligence unit" by early next year.
But a meeting of the West Yorkshire force's specialist policing bosses heard the four forces may struggle to meet the Government's deadline.
The report states: "A failure to implement the regional operational capability by West Yorkshire Police will lead to it being mandated by the Home office.
"Aside from this, we are one of four regions who do not have a regional operational capability and consequently could be accused of being a region failing to properly equip itself against the threat of organised criminality to address serious organised crime."
The report reveals organised crime groups are becoming more sophisticated, switching between criminal markets to take advantage of global trends.
It adds: "There are financial implications in delivering to the standard expected, the full costs of which will be explored during the development of the business case. It is the case though that many of the elements of our response are already in place and funded.
"There is though, a need for growth, specifically in the development of an operational capability to address serious organised crime."
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Weather for Leeds
Saturday 11 February 2012
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