Campus at the heart of Scotland’s fight against organised crime

For journalists, the Scottish Crime Campus is a place full of exciting secrets waiting to be revealed.

The four-storey building at Gartcosh in Lanarkshire is reminiscent of the posh headquarters of a financial firm.

Inside, men and women chat over lattes in breakout rooms spread across a vast atrium. It’s airy, impressive, and a world away from a grim old police station.

But behind the handsome business exterior, what’s happening here is deadly serious.

There are tight security and strict restrictions on filming, in case an undercover agent or a confidential document is captured on camera.

All these secrets remain secret until the case goes to trial and convictions are reached.

The £73m campus, which opened in 2014 on the site of a former steelworks and is based on the shape of a DNA particle, is now home to 1,100 staff from 18 major organisations.

The police work closely with Scottish Government officials, prosecutors, forensic investigators, customs officers, environmental protection officers and even staff from the Department of Works and Pensions.

The idea was to bring them together under one roof, which would improve cooperation and lead to a multidisciplinary approach by intelligence services against serious and organised crime.

Each year, 100 groups and 1,400 individuals are investigated on campus. It is said that a third of those groups are dismantled and disrupted each year.

Their activities include drug trafficking, arms trafficking, human trafficking, child abuse and sexual exploitation, serious fraud, cybercrime and illegal dumping.

The campus’s 10th anniversary celebrations marked a string of successes against major criminals, many of whom were extradited to Scotland after going into hiding abroad.

People like Christopher Hughes, who is now serving a life sentence murder of a crime blogger outside a sex club in the Netherlands.

Drugs worth millions of pounds were seized by Operation Veneticwhich followed the dismantling of an encrypted communications service used by criminals.

In the past year, investigations have uncovered £20 million worth of cocaine, £3 million worth of heroin and £6 million worth of cannabis.

Kenny Donnelly, deputy chief constable at the Crown Office, Scotland’s Public Prosecution Service, said some of the people they jailed thought they were untouchable.

A total of 952 members of serious organised criminal gangs have been imprisoned over the past five years.

But that success must be seen in the context of Scotland’s drug-related death rate, which has been the highest in the UK and Europe for years.

The war on drugs is a true whack-a-mole approach: you put one gangster behind bars and suddenly you’re facing another. That makes it a challenge that never ends.

Jo Farrell, Chief Constable of Police Scotland, said: “That’s the way the market works, but it’s our job to make sure that environment is as hostile as possible.

“You’ve seen over the years how much success we’ve had in that area, but part of that also has to do with education, economic development and community prosperity.”

Ms Farrell explains the importance of tackling organised crime through specialist officers, such as those at Gartcosh, but also through neighbourhood officers.

But by the end of June, the number of officers in Scottish police had fallen to 16,200, the lowest level in 16 years.

Ms Farrell said the force would recruit more new officers this year than ever before, bringing the number of officers back to its target of 16,600.

Deputy Chief Constable Andy Freeburn chairs the board that oversees the work of the crime campus.

He predicts more integration and a further blurring of the boundaries between the different authorities.

They are exploring the possibility of setting up a centralized analysis center and a central command center to tackle cybercrime.

“Integration is the next step after collaboration,” he said.

It will probably depend mostly on protecting the campus from budget cuts.

Ms Farrell admits financial pressures are again a concern for her force.

“It’s something we plan for,” she says. “I’ve been through it before in 2008 and 2009 in England and let’s hope the impact isn’t as damaging as it has been in the past.

“We will make plans and work together to improve efficiency.

“We will be making a very, very strong case to the Scottish Government why the Scottish Police should be properly funded.”