British police have crypto experts stationed all over the country
The UK National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) has stationed crypto-tactical advisers in police departments across the country to help investigate and seize digital assets linked to crime, an official said.
“There are now officers in every force in every regional organized crime unit, trained and equipped to do that,” said Andrew Gould, staff officer for the NPCC’s cryptocurrency portfolio, speaking at a hearing for the new Financial Crime and Corporate Transparency Act on Tuesday.
With the bill, the UK government wants to give law enforcement the power to easily freeze crypto assets with links to criminal activities. But the country’s law enforcement agencies have already stepped up their efforts to target criminals who use crypto for money laundering or financing terrorism.
The NPCC has been able to strengthen its crypto capabilities thanks to the extra £100 million sterling it received from the government, Gould said. British police chiefs lobbied the government for funding to equip and train 250 crypto-tactical advisers in 2018, Bloomberg reported.
“So we’re in a position where we’ve actually seized hundreds of millions of pounds of cryptocurrency assets over the last year or so,” Gould said.
He added that the police force has acquired investigative tools and the ability to store seized crypto at a national level. The NPCC adopted digital assets Komainu in January to give police a more “robust” way to store cryptocurrencies seized during investigations.
However, Gould still believes that the NPCC cannot keep up with crypto because it is expensive.
“The assets themselves are becoming more diverse, more technical, complex, so our officers are kind of in an arms race trying to keep up,” Gould said, adding that the tools they use cannot accommodate all crypto assets.
“So we need more than one investigative tool to be able to investigate more effectively. It’s very expensive,” Gould said.
It’s also difficult for police to retain staff while competing with the blank paychecks offered by the private sector, Gould explained.
“One of my sergeants has just been offered 200,000 [pounds] to go to the private sector, we cannot compete with that. “That’s probably the biggest risk we face in this area at the moment,” Gould said. Some police officers in the UK are paid an annual salary of between £28,000 and £100,000.
The NPCC did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
Read more: Britain wants to make it easier to seize crypto in terrorism cases
