The Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU) was part of the

Specialist Crime Directorate The Specialist Crime Directorate (SCD) was one of the main branches of London's Metropolitan Police Service. It provided highly visible specialist policing services across the whole of London. Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley had previously le ...

of the

Metropolitan Police Service The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...

in London, dedicated to combating

e-crime A cybercrime is a crime that involves a computer or a computer network.Moore, R. (2005) "Cyber crime: Investigating High-Technology Computer Crime," Cleveland, Mississippi: Anderson Publishing. The computer may have been used in committing th ...

in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The unit had a national remit, and was created in April 2008 to centralise the efforts of all police forces in the UK (excluding Scotland) to fight all forms of E-crime. The unit's responsibilities were quite specific and included activities once carried out by other bodies while excluding other activities, currently done by others. The unit's stated mission was to improve the police response to victims of e-crime by developing the capability of the police service across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, co-ordinating the law enforcement approach to all types of e-crime, and by providing a national investigative capability for the most serious e-crime incidents. The PCeU was created on 1 October 2008 and was responsible for improving the UK national policing response to cyber crime. The unit was housed within the Specialist Crime Directorate (SCD6) part of the Metropolitan Police Service based in central London. It had jurisdiction within England, Wales and Northern Ireland. However the unit worked closely with the

SCDEA The Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA) was a special police force of Scotland responsible for disrupting and dismantling serious organised crime groups. The Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency (SDEA) was established on 1 April 2001 ...

in Scotland and international law enforcement. The PCeU had a seat at the table at both the Europol and

Interpol The International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO; french: link=no, Organisation internationale de police criminelle), commonly known as Interpol ( , ), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and cri ...

cyber workstreams. Since February 2012 the PCeU had a presence outside London with the creation of 3 regional hubs. The hubs are located in England in the North West, North East and Midlands areas. The hubs were launched at the

ACPO The Association of Chief Police Officers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland (ACPO) was a not-for-profit private limited company that for many years led the development of policing practices in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Established ...

cyber conference in Sheffield. The PCeU was one of the strands of work within the ACPO e-crime programme led by DAC Janet Williams.

Merger into the NCCU

, the PCeU is being merged into the

National Cyber Crime Unit The National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU) is a command of the United Kingdom's National Crime Agency. With the creation of the National Crime Agency in 2013, the unit was formed following the merge of the Serious Organised Crime Agency's cyber division ...

, part of the new

National Crime Agency The National Crime Agency (NCA) is a national law enforcement agency in the United Kingdom. It is the UK's lead agency against organised crime; human, weapon and drug trafficking; cybercrime; and economic crime that goes across regional and in ...

References

{{reflist Metropolitan Police units Computer security organizations Information technology organisations based in the United Kingdom Law enforcement in England and Wales Law enforcement in Northern Ireland 2008 establishments in the United Kingdom