On Tuesday, September 15, 2026, the Home Office, the United Kingdom’s interior ministry, announced that hundreds of new officers will be recruited to hunt down dirty money networks and seize criminal assets as part of a major new crackdown on organised crime.
The new investigators will be deployed across police forces, the National Crime Agency (NCA) and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to track illicit finance, including money laundering networks with Russian and other international links. The initiative is backed by £500 million in funding over three years, drawn from the economic crime levy, and forms part of a newly launched Anti-Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Strategy.
The NCA estimates that more than £100 billion is laundered through the UK or UK corporate structures every year. Officials said the threat has grown in recent years due to the rise of fintech, crypto and artificial intelligence, which criminals increasingly use to move and conceal profits from drug trafficking, fraud, people smuggling and corruption.
The announcement was accompanied by new figures showing that almost £350 million was stripped from criminals and more than £1 billion was denied to them over the past year. Of that, £26 million was returned to victims, 2,700 illicit finance operations were disrupted, and convictions for money laundering rose to nearly 4,000. Almost £1 million was seized from people smugglers and immigration offenders as part of a wider effort against illegal migration.
The new officers will build on the NCA’s Operation Destabilise, which targeted Russian money laundering networks operating in the UK and abroad. During that operation, 119 suspected money launderers were arrested, and more than £25 million in cash and cryptocurrency was seized within less than 12 months.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said the government was “putting 500 more officers on the trail of dirty money” to target the criminal bosses behind organised crime. Security Minister Dan Jarvis said the fight against organised crime “does not stop at arresting offenders,” while Economic Secretary to the Treasury Lucy Rigby said the investment would make Britain “a harder place for criminals to launder money.”
The strategy also builds on the work of the High Street Organised Crime Unit, which is targeting illicit businesses such as vape shops and barber shops used as fronts for money laundering. The government said it is changing the law on closure orders to keep such premises shut and to keep the criminals behind them in custody.
Sal Melki, Deputy Director for Economic Crime at the NCA, said the funding would help build “an innovative financial intelligence service for the UK” and increase operational capacity to target money launderers. Steve Smart of the Financial Conduct Authority said the regulator would continue to prioritise fighting financial crime as part of a “whole-system effort.”
The Serious Fraud Office said it had secured £15.4 million through judicial outcomes since April 2026 and would contribute to strengthening international asset recovery under the new strategy.
Source: GOV UK
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