Scotland's first crime supercampus aimed at tackling the country's main gangland players is due to be announced today by the Scottish Executive.
The FBI-style headquarters, which will be housed at Gartcosh in Lanarkshire, will be used to target the growing threat of serious and organised crime.
The huge centre is expected to bring together organisations including the Scottish Crime and Drugs Enforcement Agency (SCDEA), Customs, immigration, forensics experts and the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca).
The campus, which is estimated to cost £40m, is expected to open in 2010 and will be on a direct rail link to Glasgow Queen Street.
Around 500 people could be based there, bringing together specialists in money-laundering, fraud, covert surveillance, and drugs trafficking. Joint working should enable arrest warrants to be issued more quickly and help prevent criminals from fleeing the country.
It will also target foreign gangs and international networks whose operations extend to Scotland.
The campus may also attract other crime-fighting organisations such as the Scottish Police Intelligence Strategy, the Scottish Forensic Science Service and the Scottish Criminal Records Office.
The plan was first mooted in 2004 by the former Scottish Drugs Enforcement Agency, which requires a new base for its 200 officers.
At the time, the move was welcomed by Graeme Pearson, now head of the SCDEA, who has vowed to crack down on the organised gangs that make millions of pounds from drugs smuggling, human trafficking and counterfeiting.
Mr Pearson has already visited the headquarters of the American FBI in Washington DC, the J Edgar Hoover Building, in order to see how the new crime-fighting body might be operated.
In addition to fighting organised crime, it has recently been suggested that the SCDEA could take over major criminal fraud investigations and counter-terrorism from local police forces.
Ministers expect the centre will be recognised internationally as one of Europe's leading weapons in the fight against crime. They have been waiting for the results of a report from property consultants Drivers Jonas, detailing four possible locations and outlining options for the campus's scale.
The Herald understands that the site of the former steelworks in Gartcosh has now been chosen.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article