ABSTRACT
Far removed from the cinematic drama of organised crime is a much more subtle and under-researched development: the increasing manipulation of the business sector to achieve criminal goals once achieved by more brutal methods. Frauds such as the ‘crash-for-cash’ car insurance fraud and ‘VAT carousel’ tax frauds fall under the contemporary rubric of ‘organised crime’, but what specifically characterises these particular offences is that a legitimate business has been infiltrated by criminals in order to commit the frauds. It is the nature of infiltration in specific UK-based cases that will be focused upon in this chapter. In so doing, the chapter will show the involvement of traditional career criminals which typify UK organised crime groups, but it will also indicate the involvement of professional white-collar criminals in some of the more complex cases of infiltration. The presence of this latter group in the ‘higher end’ (more sophisticated and complex) infiltration frauds raises some important questions about current thinking about organised crime policy and policing practice in the UK.
