By Crest Advisory and The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change
It almost feels like a cliché to say that serious and organised crime (SOC) is evolving rapidly and continuously in scale, shape and sophistication. However, after five years leading INTERPOL’s global operational responses to crime and terrorism, I’ve seen first-hand how far these escalating threats are outstripping our well-intentioned but linear, dated and fragmented response mechanisms.
In any losing battle, it is necessary to draw back and reconsider one’s approach. That is why it is time for us to recognise that SOC is no longer simply a criminal-justice matter alone – it has become a societal threat, and it is time it was treated with the seriousness, focus and renewal of tactics this demands.
My time as Executive Director of Police Services at INTERPOL fundamentally changed not just the way I see crime but the way I see the business models behind that crime. I came into this role from specialist commands at New Scotland Yard and geographic leadership as Chief Constable of Essex. But when I began looking at crime through its actual drivers and enablers – technology, transport, communication and broader logistical systems – it became impossible to ignore just how far our current models were falling short.
The implications are profound. This unique role offered a rare perspective and it was an immense privilege. Whether it was the fallout of the Afghan government’s collapse on drug flows and human trafficking, or the levels of sophistication, reach and ruthlessness of West African organised crime groups, the conclusion was the same: the criminal threats have moved on, and we haven’t.
Working internationally, it is clear how SOC embeds itself in our economies, institutions and in some cases governance and political systems. These subtle, malign networks are built to avoid law-enforcement attention, to adapt on the fly, to exploit our media and political distractions, and our global obsession with “perimeter” mindsets. The reality is that not only is law enforcement often too busy and too consumed by existing threats to notice the emergence of new, more sinister ones, but its global architecture is fractured, duplicative and falling behind.
Nowhere is this as evident as in the use of technology, which has become the ultimate enabler for SOC. From AI and deepfakes to encrypted comms and crypto flows, organised crime groups are exploiting every tool at their disposal. They’re using entrepreneurial models to recruit, move money, manage their supply chains and to attack at speeds and volumes that overwhelm traditional policing models.
This paper makes the case plainly: in the face of such technically enabled criminal business models, if we don’t treat our data and computing power as strategic assets, we are choosing to lose.
Law enforcement is still chasing symptoms, not systems. Exceptional individuals working in law enforcement are constrained by legacy tools, bureaucratic structures and performance frameworks that were created for a bygone age. Prosecutions take years. Trials are complex and juries are expected to seize complex legal and evidential issues. Meanwhile, the criminal networks regenerate.
This paper highlights the urgent need for a bolder, more strategic and proactive set of tools that sit beyond law enforcement – including sanctions, online disruption and new global mechanisms that match the transnational nature of the threat. It is refreshing because it challenges the orthodoxy and questions the institutional inertia that prevents us from taking a fundamentally different tack: one that focuses on enablers, is rooted in disruption and built on bold, trusted partnerships.
Arrests alone will never dismantle criminal economies. Organised crime functions as an economy, and must be considered and tackled accordingly. This will require disrupting logistics, targeting financial facilitators, and redirecting seized assets to strengthen the very systems needed to fight back.
This situation also means the private sector must at long last be integrated into the frontline response. Finance, tech, logistics and data systems are being exploited daily, yet their operators remain on the sidelines, or are brought in through fragmented, ad hoc efforts. These sectors can see the damage, and wish to help, yet we just haven’t made it easy for them. This paper rightly calls for their operational integration, as part of a strategic design, as essential and included partners, not as an afterthought.
No matter how imperfect or distasteful, we must be willing to put a value on serious and organised criminal harms, exactly in the way we do with other global security threats. Too often politicians avoid attaching a price to abuse and exploitation as it highlights the scale of what is happening to the public and the media. But if we’re serious about resourcing a meaningful and sustainable response, we can no longer afford to look away. Influence, funding and political attention follow data. A serious response must follow the same logic.
In the same vein, we cannot afford to ignore the geopolitics of SOC. Today on the global stage and even at a domestic level, consensus is hard-won in a world defined by distrust, instability and polarised politics. But that’s no excuse to retreat. Democracies cannot afford to treat SOC as an abstract or future concern. We must learn the lessons from across the world – just because it is difficult to see, does not mean it is not already here, not already shaping global systems, and it demands a response as strategic, coordinated and relentless as the threat itself.
The path forward will not be easy, but the case for change is clear. Conventional structures and risk-averse strategies will not meet the moment. It is time for a new mindset: one that treats data and computing power as strategic assets, accepts disruption as vital tools, and one that is willing to experiment with new institutional models that break with convention.
The ideas set out here reflect that new mindset. They propose not incremental reform, but a fundamental rethink of how the international community responds to SOC. The goal is not simply to cope with today’s threat landscape, but to get ahead of it.
This moment demands strategic ambition and operational realism, and, above all, urgency. Criminals relish our adherence to old models. SOC has already shaped the world around us.
Our response must now do the same
London: Crest Advisory and The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, 2025. 48p.
