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Mission

Serious and Organised Crime

Reducing the societal and financial harm that serious and organised crime causes to the UK
A hooded hacker working at a laptop in the dark with other computer screens behind him.


GCHQ has a growing role in protecting the UK from the social and economic harm which serious and organised crime causes. We work on a wide range of high-priority topics including:

  • Countering child sexual abuse
  • Large-scale fraud
  • Economic crime, including money laundering
  • Criminal use of technology
  • Cybercrime
  • Organised immigration crime, including modern slavery and human trafficking
  • Drugs, firearms and illicit smuggling activity

Working with the Home Office, National Crime Agency (NCA), HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and other government departments and law enforcement agencies, we help them discover and disrupt criminal activity taking place in the real world or online. Our work also helps to bring these criminals to justice, with many successful prosecutions from operations we have supported.

We also provide strategic understanding of criminal threats, drawing on our technological expertise to assist policymakers setting government strategy and legislative solutions. These insights also help us work with public, private and voluntary sector organisations to help inform and design interventions that make the UK public safer online.