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From Times Online
January 24, 2007

Comment: Soca no rival for FBI, yet

Stewart Tendler, Crime Correspondent

With a budget of £800 million, 4,000 investigators and the blessing of Tony Blair, the Serious Organised Crime Agency set off last spring with a fair wind.

But there are now doubts within the police service about Britain’s answer to the FBI and the agency will have to work very hard to earn anything like the same kudos.

Chief constables say the agency needs more time to bed in and a great deal has already been achieved in putting together such a large national unit.However some investigators point out that the agency has no clear targets despite the size of its budget, equal to half a dozen police forces.

More ominously there are reports from within the hyper-secret agency of in-fighting, bureaucracy and officers trying to return to their old forces: in the case of one group a few months after the start of the agency.

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One insider has also claimed that the old jealousies which divided police from Customs have reappeared and that investigators cling to their previous identities.

But scrutiny is difficult because Soca is exempt both from the Freedom of Information Act and data protection legislation. At the same time the agency, unlike the FBI, has chosen to operate in secrecy. Its not a good recipe for confidence.

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