Crime Busters Successful

At the same time as an announcement that criminal assets worth more than £35m have been seized or frozen during the last year by law enforcement agencies in Northern Ireland, it has also emerged that local efforts to tackle the menace of cash-in-transit robbery have also paid dividends.

NI's Organised Crime Task Force (OCTF) Chairman Paul Goggins said that drugs worth £4m were seized and cash-in-transit robberies nearly halved.

"The OCTF will continue to take the fight against organised crime in NI to the doorsteps of criminals," he said.

"Where we can, we will bring those in organised crime before the courts.

"However, if this is not possible, we will strip them of their assets and take away the trappings of wealth obtained through criminal activity."

Meanwhile, figures released today by the British Security Industry Association (BSIA) show a 28% drop in cash-in-transit attacks since the implementation of a proactive partnership initiative between the Police, the GMB trade union, and the banking, retail and security industries, which has been strongly supported by Government Ministers.

The Charter to tackle the menace of cash-in-transit robbery was signed at the Home Office in May 2007 which led to a Cash-in-Transit Action Plan being published in June.

It was significant because it bound together for the first time all the key actors into a framework for action which is now starting to deliver results. Between January and June there were 617 attacks; between July and December, 442 were recorded.

BSIA Chief Executive, David Dickinson, commented: "For a number of years cash-in-transit attacks have blighted our industry with extremely serious consequences for couriers who are performing this valuable public service.

"This is now beginning to change. The latest figures show that our partnership initiative has already made a real impact in combating this crime. The last six months of 2007 have witnessed a 28% decrease in attacks compared to the first six months of the year."

"The initiative has involved complex overt and covert Police operations in police forces across the country; considerable investment by the security industry in the introduction of new technologies to deter and detect attacks; the increasing implementation of best practice when dealing with CIT deliveries amongst the banking industry; and significantly increased communication and intelligence sharing between all the stakeholders. This has resulted in significant numbers of arrests of late and exemplary sentences have been passed on those convicted," he said.

In Northern Ireland, the number of such CIT attacks fell dramatically last year, when compared with the same period in 2006, down from 47 to 20, a fall of 27 overall.

However, just last week, G4 Securicor personnel were delivering a large quantity of money to one of the ATM cash machines in Newtownabbey's Abbey Centre when one of the guards carrying a cash box was confronted by two men.

They made off with a box after assaulting the officer, which - according to eyewitnesses - exploded, spilling dye inside the shopping mall.

See: Abbeycentre ATM Robbery Fails

(BMcC)