Exclusive: Criminal gangs net £2.5bn a year in Yorkshire

ORGANISED crime in Yorkshire is worth an estimated £2.5bn a year, the Yorkshire Post can reveal today as detectives ready themselves for a fresh onslaught against the region's "Mr Bigs".

With a dedicated cross-border squad due to begin tackling Yorkshire's criminal gangs from April, senior police have described how crime bosses can fund lavish lifestyles through drug dealing, violence and elaborate frauds.

Illegal empires stretch well beyond force boundaries, even involving villains who have quit Britain to live abroad.

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But their impact can be clearly seen in Yorkshire, where detectives claim as many as one in four murders can be linked to organised crime.

Ten men were jailed yesterday for their part in two major conspiracies with links to the region – a website which allowed fraudsters to buy stolen credit card details and a counterfeiting operation involving the production of fake cash.

The head of West Yorkshire Police's crime division, Detective Chief Superintendent Howard Crowther, said studies showed organised crime in the UK has a turnover of up to 40bn a year.

"That includes everything from industry fraud to big credit card fraud to identity fraud," he said. "The other crimes are harder to quantify as drug prices vary so greatly.

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"If you compare the amount you might pay for a drug in Afghanistan and the amount you pay for it on the streets of Leeds, the difference can be 1,000 per cent."

Mr Crowther said some criminals frittered away the proceeds of their crimes but others used the money to set up businesses or to buy expensive homes, fast cars and private schooling for their children.

"When you think about the recession, some people would say that it's drug money that has kept the property market from crashing even further, both here and abroad. This trade can sustain economies."

A report to councillors last month stated there were 200 organised crime groups in Yorkshire but Mr Crowther said the precise number changed daily.

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Crime patterns also vary from area to area – Sheffield has been blighted by violence between rival "postcode" gangs but West Yorkshire's largest problems relate to drug dealing and money laundering.

Mr Crowther said Bradford had been identified as a "main distribution route" for heroin but gangs would also deal in cocaine and cannabis.

"We've still got a lot of traffic from the West – Merseyside and Manchester – through to West Yorkshire along the M62 corridor," he said, "but drugs come from Amsterdam through the ports and Spain also tends to be an option.

"Most of the people we have currently listed as being members of an organised crime group will deal in any one of those drugs, and they might also intersperse that with other criminal activity, especially trading in cigarettes."

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From April 1, gangs will be monitored by a cross-border detective squad assisted by counter-terrorism officers, the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, and HM Revenue and Customs.

Yorkshire's four police forces have already set up a regional intelligence unit, an asset recovery team and a roads policing team, which in 16 months has seized more than 5m in cash, property, drugs and weapons.

Police chiefs from across Europe met in London last week to share information on organised crime, and Yorkshire detectives have been asked to contribute to a Home Office study which will analyse how the problem affects murder rates.

Max McLean, head of West Yorkshire Police's Homicide and Major Enquiry Team, said his officers investigated 35 homicides a year on average, of which one in four had probable links to organised crime.