131 Indian-origin Brits on UK's organised crime gangs list: report

London: As many as 131 India-born people, who have changed their nationality to British, have been mapped as having links to organised crime gangs of the UK, according to an official data. 

According to the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) data obtained through the Organised Crime Group Mapping project, Albanians were the UK's largest foreign-born criminal group, followed by Pakistanis, who are largely thought to be involved in the wholesale supply of heroin brought in from Afghanistan via British ports. 

"The vast majority of members of organised crime groups in the UK are British. The data is an important tool to help measure risk, avoid duplication of work between law enforcement partners and helps inform government," an NCA spokesperson said. 

It also showed that 131 Indians, 141 Somalis, 78 Poles, 47 Sri Lankans and 44 Nigerians were among the active gang members who had changed their nationality. 

As per the detailed figures obtained by 'The Times', under the "current nationality" category, the number of Pakistan-born people involved in organised crime has reduced by almost half as out of 860 gangsters, about 393 have gained British or European Union nationality, as a result, Pakistanis on the list dropped to fourth place. 

In the figures, contrasting birth nationality and current nationality, large numbers of organised criminals from India, Pakistan, Somalia, Poland and Kosovo appeared to have become British or EU nationals, the newspaper concludes. 

Violent gangsters, drug dealers and human traffickers are among a total of 2,083 Britons who were born abroad and being monitored as active members of organised crime syndicates in the UK. 

Data from the NCA on 33,598 gangsters spread across 4,629 syndicates revealed that although up to 80 per cent of known organised criminals in the UK were British nationals, only 73 per cent were born in the UK. 

Of about 77 Kosovan-born gangsters, who are likely to have arrived in Britain as refugees, none appeared in the figures for "current nationality", suggesting that all had been granted British citizenship allowing them to remain in the UK.