Organised crime gangs looking to their laptops

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson said: "The modern Tony Soprano-style crime lord will have a cyber expert on hand."

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, he warned about the risk of losing technology specialists in order to keep officers on the beat, saying: "Uniform officers alone will not keep the streets safe."

His comments came after his force last week charged 11 eastern Europeans over a multi-million pound theft from UK online bank accounts.

Sir Paul said police were only tackling 11 per cent of the 6,000 organised crime groups in England and Wales "in an operationally meaningful way".

Of the 385 officers in England and Wales dedicated to online work, 85 per cent were tackling people-trafficking and child pornography – leaving fewer than 60 to fight financial crimes such as bank fraud.

"My investigators tell me the expertise available to law enforcement is thin, compared to the skills they suspect are at the disposal of cyber criminals," he said.

The commissioner added: "If the debate about police cutbacks gets bogged down in arguments about 'uniforms before specialists' we will not serve the public well."