March of the Euro Police: Shocking New Powers

The full extent of the police and criminal prosecution powers that the European Union has over British citizens can be revealed today. An investigation has uncovered an array of new EU controls over justice and home affairs for which no one has voted, and most are unknown to the public. These include:

• Europol, the £60 million-a-year European criminal intelligence agency, whose officers have diplomatic immunity.
• An 800-strong paramilitary police force called the European Gendarmerie Force.
• The European Arrest Warrant, which now allows British citizens to be seized in the UK and sent without appeal to foreign jails for months or years without bail while awaiting trial.

Europol now has more than 650 officials at its headquarters in The Hague, from where it directs investigations across Europe. When its Euro police officers are operating in the UK they have diplomatic immunity and cannot be touched by the British judiciary. Europol’s director is Rob Wainwright, 43, a Welsh-speaking former British civil servant who joined Europol last year. He and his officials will move into a new £8.5 million building next year.

The paramilitary police force has been trained in Italy and armed to be deployed as ‘an expeditionary police mission’ under military command if necessary. The gendarmerie is not yet a full EU institution. However, its official purpose is ‘a consistent and co-ordinated deployment of EU police forces with a military status and full police powers. The EGF will be, first and foremost, at the disposal of the EU.’ Members are drawn from Italy, Spain, Portugal, Romania, France and the Netherlands.

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Europol announces arrests of 115 'child sex offenders'

Europol says 115 alleged child sex offenders have been arrested in raids across 18 EU nations and Canada. It says its two-year Operation Typhoon - targeting child sex offenders on the internet - has now been concluded.

The suspects had different professional backgrounds, some of them being teachers or caretakers in close contact with children. It says it identified five children - aged between four and 12 - who had been victims of sexual crimes.

Europol says its investigation was led by Austria's Criminal Intelligence Service (.BK) which had detected an internet service provider misused by child sex offender groups to distribute illegal content on the internet. Log files collected by the .BK were then sent to Europol together with offending images. In all, 221 suspects have been identified of which 115 have been arrested, Europol says.

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Globalization Boosts Europe's Gangsters

As borders come down within and beyond Europe, it is not only legitimate businesses that are benefiting, but also those that produce illegal drugs, traffic in humans, manufacture fake luxury goods, and counterfeit euros – businesses better known as organised crime – are profiting too, according to a new report from the EU's criminal intelligence agency.

Liberalisation, low-cost airlines, and China's low-wage economy are all helping Europe's gangsters to thrive while the rest of the economy remains in crisis, says Europol's 2009 organised crime threat assessment. The report breaks up Europe's gangs into five 'hubs', the most important of which are those from the northwest, centred on the Netherlands and to a lesser extent Belgium.

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