The British government, determined to crack down on drug trafficking, people smuggling and fraud, unveiled its blueprints Monday for a new, FBI-style police force to tackle organised crime.
The elite Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), staffed with 5,000 specialist officers, should be up and running by 2006, according to a strategy paper from Home Secretary David Blunkett.
Other measures would include, for the first time, plea bargaining for gangsters who turn against their bosses, and the admissibility in court of taped phone calls and intercepted e-mails.
"I am now convinced that every means at our disposal should be examined in order to get what is now a cross-boundary international scourge tackled," Blunkett said on BBC radio.