| Federal Criminal Police Office Bundeskriminalamt |
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| Abbreviation | .BK |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 2002 |
| Legal personality | Governmental: Government agency |
| Jurisdictional structure | |
| Federal agency (Operations jurisdiction) |
Austria |
| Legal jurisdiction | As per operations jurisdiction. |
| Constituting instrument | Federal Criminal Police Office Law (Bundeskriminalamtgesetz)[1] |
| General nature |
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| Operational structure | |
| Headquarters | Josef-Holaubek-Platz, Alsergrund, Vienna |
| Parent agency | Generaldirektion für die öffentliche Sicherheit (General Directorate of Public Security) |
| Website | |
| http://www.bundeskriminalamt.at/ (Austrian) | |
The Federal Criminal Police Office (German: Bundeskriminalamt, .BK, literally "Federal Criminal Office") was created in Austria as a federal police force to effectively combat crime nationwide and to perform international police cooperation functions. This happened in 2002 with a special law called the Federal Investigation Bureau Law (Bundeskriminalamtgesetz) [1]. The .BK is also sometimes referred to as the Austrian Criminal Intelligence Service. It should not be confused with the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany which is also called the Bundeskriminalamt but abbreviated BKA.
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The main missions of the .BK are international cooperation, investigations, crime prevention and collating crime statistics. It is Austria’s national central bureau for the European Police Office (Europol), Schengen Information System and International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol).
The .BK is subordinate to the Generaldirektion für die öffentliche Sicherheit (General Directorate of Public Security) in the Federal Interior Ministry in Vienna. It is therefore not directly linked with the Federal Police, which is a separate organisation within the General Directorate of Public Safety. This new organisation was conceived as a better solution to combatting supraregional and serious crime due to its structure, specially trained personnel and equipment.
The abbreviation ".BK" was chosen so as not to be confused with the Austrian Federal Chancellor's Office (Bundeskanzleramt) which is abbreviated "BKA". The full stop before the BK is part of the corporate design of the Interior Ministry. The .BK's headquarter is in the Alsergrund district of Vienna on Josef-Holaubek-Platz which is named after a former superintendent of the Viennese police.
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