Opal: Tackling Serious Organised Acquisitive Crime
What is Opal?
Opal is the national intelligence unit focused on serious organised acquisitive crime (SOAC) where there is a series of offences impacting on two or more police force areas, including Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The Opal team is the intelligence and coordination function responsible to the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) portfolio for Serious and Organised Acquisitive Crime, which sits under the wider Crime Operations Coordinaton Committee. The team drive identifying and developing intelligence involving SOAC across the UK and linked matters overseas.
Opal was established on 1 April 2019 and is now hosted via North Wales Police. It falls under the leadership of Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman, the National Policing Lead for Acquisitive Crime. So far, the unit has a number of intelligence staff including intelligence analysts, intelligence development officers and researchers, and police officers, under the leadership of Chief Superintendent Jim Taylor.
Amanda joined West Mercia Police in 1992 and throughout her career has held various posts. She spent the first 11 years of her service gaining an invaluable amount of experience and knowledge across a variety of roles as a police constable.
In 2003 she was promoted to sergeant and, since then, across several ranks, has led teams in delivering critical services to communities. She has held the responsibility for intelligence and proactive functions and has been a Senior Investigating Officer as part of the Force Serious and Organised Crime Unit.
In 2008, seconded to the West Midlands Regional Intelligence Unit, she led the development of the critical processes around identifying and disrupting Organised Crime Groups. In addition, she has led the delivery of policing operations on a local level as a Local Policing Area Commander. She has also held the roles of Head of Public Protection and Head of Operational Support for West Mercia Police and Warwickshire Police. She has been a Tactical Firearms Commander and is now a Specialist Strategic Firearms Commander.
Amanda has a bachelor’s in science with honours in crime and criminology.
Amanda was appointed as Deputy Chief Constable for West Mercia Police in February 2017 having previously been Assistant Chief Constable for Local Policing, since October 2014, for Warwickshire Police and West Mercia Police. She joined Gwent Police in October 2019 as Deputy Chief Constable, and was appointed as Chief Constable for North Wales in October 2022. She is the Chair of British Association of Women in Policing (BAWP).
She has national portfolio responsibilities for:
- Police National Database
- Acquisitive Crime
- VAWG – Wales
- Criminal Justice – Wales
Jim is a career detective having served 29 years in various roles. Jim started off in Wiltshire Police and quickly leaned towards proactive intelligence-led policing, before being promoted to the rank of Sergeant.
As a Detective Sergeant he headed up the priority crime team focussing on burglary, vehicle crime and robbery. Jim was then promoted to Inspector within Intelligence Command, before he took up a role as a Detective Inspector on the Operations Team in the South West ROCU. Then as a DCI, he led the Operations, Cyber and Financial teams. Jim also led within the major crime arena as part of a three force collaboration, and is very proud of attaining PIP3 and 4 status.
Jim spent time leading in a DCI role in Avon and Somerset before being promoted to Superintendent, as the Director of Intelligence and Force Authorising Officer. He then took on the role as head of unit leading in his current role as Chief Superintendent with Opal.
His responsibilities within his role as Head of Opal include:
- Setting and delivering the strategy a national portfolio.
- Enhancing collaboration and performance delivery.
- Heading up the unit and leading on behalf of the country with National and international partners.
- Enhancing and developing innovative and collaborative ways of working to tackle SOAC and related threats.
Stephanie joined West Mercia Police in 2013 and has worked in various roles with the vast majority of her experience across intelligence functions.
Stephanie has worked in a number of intelligence roles to support a wide range of threat areas including firearms and the use of predictive analysis to support the apprehension of offenders and the location of missing persons.
Stephanie joined Opal in 2019 at its inception and during this time has supported Opal’s continued growth as a functionality which delivers a clear operational intelligence focus in support of tackling serious and organised acquisitive crime nationally.
Stephanie has a Bachelor of Laws with Honours from the University of Birmingham.
Her responsibilities within her role as Head of Intelligence include:
- Leading the Organised Retail Crime functionality.
- Heading up the intelligence and analysis functions within Opal.
- Maximising data and intelligence opportunities across policing and partners.
- Enhancing and developing innovative and collaborative ways of working to tackle SOAC and related threats.
Lee is Head of Operations for Opal and has been a detective across various roles within Thames Valley Police and the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit (SEROCU).
He started his career in Oxfordshire and always had a strong interest in organised crime, investigation and proactive Policing. After a few years as a uniformed officer, he moved into various roles as a Detective Constable including burglary, car theft and vehicle crime, and the Criminal Investigation Department, before being promoted to Detective Sergeant, where he headed up teams including priority crime teams and main office CID.
Lee then moved as a Detective Sergeant into the world of intelligence leading teams in Oxfordshire and then within the force intelligence bureau before moving to the regional county lines coordinator role, where he joined the National County Lines Coordination Centre (NCLCC) working on a regional and national basis.
Lee then joined the Thames Valley Police violence reduction unit as lead for county lines and exploitation, and worked with partners around reducing serious violence and drugs related harm.
His responsibilities within his role as Head of Operations include:
- Leading joint operational activities in partnership.
- Heading up the operational delivery functions within Opal.
- Maximising data and intelligence opportunities across policing and partners.
- Enhancing and developing innovative and collaborative ways of working to tackle SOAC and related threats.
Richard is a Thames Valley Police officer currently leading as a Detective Sergeant within Opal. Richard joined Thames Valley Police in December 2002 and throughout his career he has held various roles, mainly based at High Wycombe Police Station. In 2013 he began working in intelligence.
Richard spent the first few years working in local intelligence, and then in 2017 he joined the Major Crime Intelligence Team. Some of the cases that he worked on have been televised on Catching the Killer TV series, and The Sixth Commandment.
In May 2022 Richard got promoted to the rank of sergeant, and in February 2024 joined Opal.
His responsibilities within his role as Detective Sergeant include:
- Leading the Operational responses across the Opal thematics.
- Leading the Analysts and Intelligence development operational activities.
- Driving partnership working disrupting Serious organised acquisitive crime groups.
- Enhancing and developing innovative and collaborative ways of working to tackle SOAC and related threats.
Katherine joined Thames Valley Police in 2015 as a researcher in patrol strategy. She then worked in strategic governance as a His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services's (HMICFRS) coordinator and Corporate Strategy Researcher. In this role, she coordinated the annual schedule of assessments from the policing inspectorate, was involved in corporate change projects, and advised on risk assessment, business continuity and data protection. She was also involved in horizon scanning and legislation interpretation.
In 2019 Katherine joined the Thames Valley Force Intelligence Bureau, where she worked as an Intelligence Development Officer in child sexual exploitation, before moving to the Rural and Commercial Crime Desk in 2021. In her portfolio she covered organised business burglaries and thefts; commercial robberies; metal and infrastructure theft; fuel and freight theft; and offences against banks and jewellers. She has also provided intelligence support for both Royal funerals, the Coronation, political events, and major crime investigations.
Katherine has a Bachelor of Arts with Honours and a Master of Science, both from Durham University.
Her responsibilities as Intelligence Support Manager include:
- Managing the organised retail crime functionality.
- Coordinating intelligence capabilities and running the ORC team.
- Maximising data and intelligence opportunities across policing and partners.
- Enhancing and developing innovative and collaborative ways of working to tackle SOAC and related threats.
Opal works with law enforcement officers, partners and industry (both nationally and internationally), leading intelligence functions and coordinating approaches to tackling SOAC.
Opal's purpose is to discover and develop intelligence to support the disruption of organised crime groups that are a priority, due to their assessed levels of threat, SOAC economic/social impact and financial/material gain. This in turn will improve the UK's knowledge and response to cross border criminality in relation to SOAC.
The team is identifying and assessing current knowledge, establishing what investigations are currently active across the country and debriefing successful law enforcement and partner activity. They also undertake research across the wide SOAC remit to develop their knowledge and develop their network of stakeholders.
Opal work to the UK Serious and Organised Crime Strategy to ensure that their work does not repeat already valuable activity, and to identify gaps where they can add value to the delivery of the strategy.
The team is continuously learning about the scale and trends within acquisitive crime, and aims to work with stakeholders to establish broad, problem-solving responses to the organised criminality that is impacting on our neighbourhoods.
Acquisitive crime can have a considerable impact on victims and the team focus on these high volume, tangible crimes to reduce the direct harm to the public.
The Opal unit provides support to a range of sources including national police leads, the Home Office, the National Crime Agency (NCA), Europol, the International Association of Auto Theft Investigators, Interpol, Regional Organised Crime Units, as well as individual police forces and partner agencies. In short, it coordinates activity and assists forces in developing operations to combat SOAC. It provides a range of intelligence products to law enforcement agencies as well as non-statutory partners across a wide range of sectors including retail, business and vehicle crime.
Opal support operational work as well as strategic intelligence development in order to assist activity across the 4P spectrum. They are responsible for writing the SOAC section for the national strategic assessment produced by the NCA.
Partnership working is at the heart of the operating model and Opal staff regularly work with industry experts to raise awareness of crime trends, changes in complexity of crime and national hotspots in order to prevent offences.
- 316 stolen vehicles recovered in intensification week - September 2024
- Team making strides in fight against organised retail crime - August 2024
- Action on retail crime boosted with Government announcement - April 2024
- National intelligence unit opens retailer training - April 2024
- Policing Retail Crime Action Plan shows early impact - February 2024
- Partnership to crack down on shoplifting - October 2023
Any information relating to SOAC will be used to identify national trends and any support requests will go through our weekly tasking process.
You can contact Opal via [email protected]
Follow the team behind Opal on LinkedIn, and on X.
We invite you to join us for the third Serious Organised Acquisitive Crime (SOAC) Conference.
We will bring together law enforcement partners from across the UK and Europe as well as business and industry leads. The conference will feature keynote speakers, breakout sessions, question panels as well as an opportunity to meet our sponsors and discuss the latest innovations in the fight against SOAC.
To pre-register your interest please visit the event website or contact CJS Events.