Research and analysis

Understanding organised crime April 2015 to March 2016 second edition

This report aims to improve our understanding of organised crime in the UK by updating estimates of the scale, and the social and economic cost, for a range of organised crime types.

Documents

Understanding organised crime April 2015 to March 2016 second edition

Details

Home Office Research Report 103 outlines evidence on serious and organised crime including child sexual exploitation (CSE), counterfeit currency, cyber-dependent crime against individuals, drugs supply, economic crime, environmental crime, firearms supply, intellectual property (IP) crime and counterfeiting, modern slavery, organised acquisitive crime (OAC), and organised immigration crime (OIC) all of which have a substantial impact on the UK.

The current research improves estimation methods, discusses a wider range of data, and ultimately provides a considerably broader and more detailed picture of the scale and costs of serious and organised crime to the UK than has previously been available.

The social and economic costs of organised crime to the UK is estimated to be approximately £37 billion in financial year 2015 to 2016.

Updates to this page

Published 1 November 2018
Last updated 11 March 2019 + show all updates
  1. In the original edition of this report, the volume figures for the illicit tobacco and cigarette market were for the overall market (rather than the illicit market). The following revisions were therefore required. The volume figure for illicit hand-rolled tobacco (HRT) has been revised from 9.9 million kilograms to 3.2 million kilograms. The volume figure for illicit cigarettes has been revised from 38.5 billion to 5 billion. The estimated market size for illicit HRT has been revised from £1,800m to £580m. The estimated market size for illicit cigarettes has been revised from £6,700m to £880m. The total scale of organised illicit tobacco and cigarette supply has been revised from £8,500m to £1,500m. The total scale of organised economic crime has been revised from £14.4 billion to £7.3 billion. The total scale of serious and organised crime has been revised from £20 billion to £13 billion. In the second edition, these revisions have been made to Tables 2 and 5, and the text has been revised accordingly where required.

  2. First published.

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