http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/Sunday-Times/frontpage.html?999 December 5 1999 Blair's spy summit on red Mafia Nicholas Rufford THE heads of Britain's three intelligence agencies have held an unprecedented summit at Downing Street in response to the rising threat from international organised crime. Dr Stephen Lander, of MI5, Richard Dearlove, MI6 chief, and Francis Richards, of GCHQ, assembled for the first time in secret session to brief Tony Blair that international gangs may now be the biggest threat to national security. The summit followed warnings from the Home Office of a "crime emergency" facing Britain. Racketeering, illegal immigration and multi-million-pound fraud are growing at a staggering rate and are swamping the efforts of police and customs. Blair has told colleagues since the meeting, at the end of last month, that the escalation in crime could threaten Labour's chances of a second term in office. The meeting is understood to have taken place in the Cabinet Room, where Blair was flanked by Jonathan Powell, his chief of staff. The heads of the three services have not met at Downing Street since the IRA mortar attack in February 1991. The November meeting was the first called on crime. Blair has agreed to a request by the agencies to divert resources from counter-espionage and counter-terrorism. The peace process in Northern Ireland will allow the agencies to scale down their efforts against Irish terrorism, though rebel groups remain a threat. MI6 will expand its operations against drug traffickers, particularly along the "Balkans route" through which most drugs enter Britain. MI5 is expected to double the �10m it spent last year on fighting serious crime. GCHQ, the government's listening station, is to step up interception of computerised transactions linked to money-laundering and fraud, and international telephone traffic between gangs. The fastest growing areas of criminal activity are: ? The "red Mafia" - a term covering Russian and eastern European gangs. Having siphoned billions of dollars from the former Soviet Union through fraud, extortion and smuggling they are investing in London property and in stocks and shares. The red Mafia was linked to Friday's murder in Monaco of Edmond Safra, head of a global financial empire. ? Albanian gangs engaged in human trafficking, prostitution, arms dealing and drug smuggling. Criminal activity has been boosted by the rapid growth of the Albanian population in British cities and the continuing lawlessness in Kosovo. ? Turkish drug barons are tightening their grip on the heroin trade, by flooding the market with cheap imports and assassinating opponents. More heroin was seized in Britain in the first six months of this year than for all of 1998. Four-fifths of heroin seized in Britain was peddled by Turkish gangs. ? Cigarette smuggling by Asian gangs has reached epidemic levels and is estimated to cost the Treasury �1.7 billion this year, representing more than a penny on income tax. ? West African criminal gangs in Britain are rapidly expanding their operations from credit-card and advance-fee fraud to other criminal operations, including welfare fraud across the European Union. ? More established gangland names have not gone away. The Italian Mafia was behind an attempt to break into the Lloyd's insurance market earlier this year by buying up brokerages. The triads, in conjunction with Far Eastern crime syndicates, have been attempting to infiltrate British sport. The Downing Street summit agreed closer integration and possible merger of the work of the intelligence services and other law enforcement agencies. A senior MI5 officer has been appointed to help run the national intelligence division of Customs and Excise. He will complement the work of Paul Evans, head of the national investigations service, who was recruited from MI6. Other MI5 officers have been seconded to the national criminal intelligence service, which advises police forces. Crime in Britain is following the pattern of the United States and becoming more premeditated and more violent. Jack Straw, the home secretary, said last week that theft in England and Wales could rise by 40% by 2001 and burglary by 25%. President Bill Clinton yesterday approved $30 billion spending for America's intelligence services, which have been given increased powers to seize the assets of drug traffickers.
