UK Economic Crime Plan – long on commitment, short on cash

The UK Government’s Economic Crime Plan 2019 (ECP) [1], an ambitious set of 52 actions, calls on public and private sectors to pull together but whether an extra UK£48 million for policing in 2019/20 is likely to put much of a dent in the UK£37 billion annual cost of serious and organised crime – the Home Office’s own estimate – or impact the hundreds of billions of pounds laundered through the UK each year – this figure deemed a ‘realistic possibility’ by the National Crime Agency [2] – is questionable.