UK Backs Money Laundering Crackdown With $676M and 500 New Officers
Britain will hire 500 officers and spend £500 million over three years to expand efforts against money laundering and asset recovery. The funding, drawn from the economic crime levy, will support police forces, the National Crime Agency and the Crown Prosecution Service. Officials say more than £100 billion is laundered through UK channels each year, with fintech, crypto and AI making the threat more complex. The plan builds on Operation Destabilise, which targets networks converting street cash into crypto for organized crime. So far, that effort has led to 119 arrests and more than £25 million seized in cash and crypto. The NCA wants to extend this model to other networks and develop a more proactive crypto capability. Government figures for the past year include almost £350 million taken from criminals, over £1 billion denied, £26 million returned to victims, and nearly 4,000 money laundering convictions.
