16/04/2016
Subject: RE: SOS – Save Our Squads
Good afternoon, in respect to this request happy to offer some insight into what our unit function is/successes albeit it’s worth bearing in mind we are wholly privately funded but hopefully there’s something in this submission that might be helpful to colleagues across the pond!
NaVCIS
NaVCIS is the National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service, a small Police Unit dedicated to the prevention and detection of vehicle crime and supporting our law enforcement colleagues both home and abroad. As part of the National Police Chiefs Council portfolio, we represent UK policing and provide support to National Crime Agency, UKBF and HM Government.
NaVCIS is at the heart of national vehicle crime related issues and is steadily growing its footprint in both public and private sectors, not only running its own operations and investigations but also disseminating key data, intelligence and advice to Police Forces, Industry, Government, Partners, Public and foreign enforcement agencies.
There are various strands to our work each working towards reducing vehicle-related crime. These are NaVCIS Fraud, NaVCIS Ports, NaVCIS Leisure, NaVCIS Agricultural, NaVCIS Freight and NaVCIS Intelligence (More information is provided in the attached PDF document).
Our primary task is to help reduce vehicle and vehicle-enabled crime by building knowledge in prevention, detection and monitoring techniques. Although theft of and from vehicles has fallen over the past 10 years, the use of vehicles in acquisitive crimes, such as burglary, serious and organised crime, cannot be overlooked. NaVCIS incorporates a number of specialist services working together to reduce vehicle crime and vehicle-enabled crime.
A few notable successes
- Through the work of NaVCIS and our partners, vehicles valued in excess of £17 million have been recovered in the last two and half years by NaVCIS Ports and nearly £34 million worth of vehicles have been recovered as a result of the work conducted by the NaVCIS Fraud team and their colleagues.
- Operation Britcar 2 day operation (28/29th April 2015) was led by the UK National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service (NaVCIS) and supported by the INTERPOL Stolen Motor Vehicle (SMV) Task Force. During the operation, police inspected vehicles at the ports of Felixstowe, Dover and Portsmouth, identified as routes used by organized criminal groups to smuggle stolen vehicles to Southern Europe and Africa.Police recovered 18 stolen vehicles, including a caravan which had been reported just 40 minutes earlier, and arrested two individuals.
- In June 2015, officers from the UK’s, National Crime Agency (NCA) and National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service (NaVCIS), working with the Uganda Police Force, carried out a number of searches at bonded warehouses across Kampala. Together they discovered a total of 36 high value cars stolen from the UK with a value in excess of £1 million.
It’s worthy of note the number of specialist vehicle examiners has reduced across a number of forces in the UK therefore specialist resources like NaVCIS bring expertise that can add really value to local police forces/wider partners. Investment in analysis capability has been central to our growth working to understand regional/national threats in particular from organised crime groups towards promoting an evidence-based approach to both vehicle and vehicle enabled criminality.
NaVCIS electronic booklet A5 v5