Trading Intelligence

Steven David Brown is an independent consultant on law enforcement matters and an author. Having qualified as a barrister, he became a police officer with the Metropolitan Police in London and later served with both NCIS and Europol. His work in international law enforcement has taken him as far as Central Asia and involved long periods in the Balkans. In this article, he discusses how criminal intelligence must be traded internationally in order to support national law enforcement efforts against increasingly globalized criminal enterprise. However, the terms of such a trade require not only a contract with a clear set of rules and standards, but also a proper appreciation of the context and trading conditions. This article considers what makes that international trade viable and reliable whilst highlighting the differences that can impact on the willingness and the capacity of law enforcement agencies to deliver the assistance promised at a political level.