The National Crime Agency will eventually replace the existing National Crime Squad and National Criminal Intelligence Service. The press has already dubbed it the British FBI. The agency will not begin full operations until 2006. Its main task will be to combat drug trafficking and illegal migration. In addition, it will take over investigative functions currently under the purview of the customs and immigration authorities.
The agency, however, will not investigate cases involving terrorism and murder. It will also not take part in police operations, but is intended only to provide them with intelligence and investigative information. “The creation of the agency will make it possible to coordinate work in these areas more effectively,” Tony Blair stressed. “We must become better organized and more technologically powerful than criminals,” UK Home Secretary David Blunkett noted.
The National Crime Agency will have a staff of more than five thousand employees. These changes within the UK Home Office are the most extensive in the past 40 years.