National Criminal Intelligence Service
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The National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) was a United Kingdom policing agency set up as a separate body in April 1992 to centralise the gathering and distribution of intelligence on serious and organised criminal matters. NCIS was formed out of the National Drugs Intelligence Unit in the Home Office. Following the Police and Criminal Justice Act 2001, NCIS returned to direct funding by the Home Office in 2002 and was a non-departmental public body. On 1 April 2006 it was merged into the newly created Serious Organised Crime Agency.
NCIS provided the intelligence back-up to other agencies, such as the National Crime Squad, and concentrated on drugs, financial crime, immigration, firearms and organised crime. The organisation did not have a remit to deal with terrorism. Internationally, NCIS liased with Interpol and Europol, and other international law enforcement networks.
Under section 2 of the Police Act 1997, the functions of NCIS were:
- to gather, store and analyse information in order to provide criminal intelligence;
- to provide criminal intelligence to police forces in Great Britain, the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the National Crime Squad and other law enforcement agencies; and
- to act in support of such police forces, the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the National Crime Squad and other law enforcement agencies carrying out their criminal intelligence activities.
Money laundering reports were made to NCIS. The disclosure criteria were expanded by the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, and NCIS received around 100,000 disclosures in 2003, 60 per cent more than in 2002 and over triple the number in 2001.
NCIS employed staff directly, but also seconded staff from over 25 partner agencies such as the police, HM Customs and Excise, HM Immigration Service, the Inland Revenue, the Identity and Passport Service, the Medicines Control Agency, and the Financial Services Authority.
NCIS had its headquarters in London, with five regional offices in Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Manchester and Wakefield, and a satellite office in Belfast.
