Law and enforcemnet
Opal is Shining Bright
Success of Organised and Acquisitive Crime Fighting Initiative Lights the Way
Not wishing to mix gem and precious stones metaphors, but in terms of law enforcement success, Opal—the national police initiative charged with reducing organised, acquisitive business crime—is something of a shining "diamond in the rough".
Although not mentioned by name, the collaborative model of intelligence-led policing championed by Opal working in tandem with the business community could be the polished gem that guides the new kind of law enforcement model envisioned by the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood who earlier this year announced plans to reduce the number of police forces across the UK.
In her white paper published in January, she announced what was described as "the biggest shake up in policing in the last 200 years" whereby a strategic review would determine the shape of UK law enforcement with force mergers dramatically reducing the current 43 constabularies to save money and build efficiencies. No figure has been put on the number of forces that will remain, only that they would provide the foundation for a more co-ordinated and targeted national policing approach to tackling serious and organised high harm criminality.
Mahmood, a former barrister, argued in the policy proposal that the current model is bureaucratic and wastes money as a result of each force running their own headquarters, management teams, and backroom staff.
Ministers also believe the performance of local forces varies too widely across England. They believe smaller forces are less well equipped to deal with serious crime and respond to major incidents.
To this end, Ministers believe larger forces should focus on tackling serious and organised crime, as well as complex cases like murder and drugs.
In tandem with announcing this new pared back constabulary model, the Government unveiled more plans for new local policing areas, with local officers focusing on neighbourhood law enforcement.
It is proposed that these areas will be set up in every borough, town, or city across England, and will be tasked with working with communities and fighting what the Government calls "local crime", such as shoplifting, phone theft, and drug dealing.
The Government is focused on the "epidemic of everyday offences" that they say are going unpunished, and the outcome being that criminals believe they can "cause havoc on our streets with impunity" because people are forced to wait hours or days for police to investigate crimes.
While the plans could take years to be implemented—the Government has pointed to a deadline of the end of the next Parliament which is 2034—the direction of travel has already been established in the retail sector, with more resources having already been committed to Opal as part of its role in the national "Tackling Retail Crime Together" strategy.
Background
The unit was first established on 1 April 2019 and still falls under the leadership of Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman, the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) lead for acquisitive crime.
It was always a national intelligence unit focused on serious organised acquisitive crime (SOAC), where there is a series of offences impacting two or more police force areas, including Scotland and Northern Ireland.
It built a reputation for strong contacts with the UK's nine dedicated regional organised crime units (ROCUs) whose main role was to investigate and disrupt organised crime groups operating across police force boundaries. Some ROCUs provide support to investigations into other types of crime such as homicide and kidnap, but they also act as an important point of connection between police forces and the National Crime Agency (NCA) as part of a more joined-up policing model across the country.
This best practice approach was directed at discovering and developing intelligence to support the disruption of organised crime groups that are a priority, due to their assessed levels of threat, economic and social impact, and financial or material gain. This in turn will improve the UK's knowledge and response to cross-border criminality in relation to SOAC.
In the autumn 2021 edition of Loss Prevention Magazine Europe, Amanda Blakeman said: "The team is identifying and assessing current knowledge, establishing activity across the country, debriefing successful law enforcement and partner activity, and then connecting the issues and activity to create the big picture. This allows us to respond effectively and truly problem solve. We are also undertaking research across the wider SOAC remit to develop our knowledge and our network of stakeholders."
Opal 2.1 Retail Focus
Opal's later iteration as a focus for organised business crime impacting retail was championed in 2023 by Katy Bourne OBE, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Sussex and lead for business crime. Her intervention followed a dramatic spike in violent and aggressive attacks on stores.
Operation Pegasus fired the starting pistol for wider retail engagement, and with the full-throated and financial support of twelve national retailers working with the then National Business Crime Solution (NBCS), funding was made available to determine the true scale of the challenge on the high street.
Pegasus became the midwife to the re-birth of Opal and Home Office funding for the unit and the business analysts working in it.
Although under the auspices of North Wales constabulary where Amanda Blakeman is the Chief Constable, Opal's brief remains national.
It was re-launched on 1 May 2024 and originally engaged twelve intelligence staff, including analysts and researchers, but it enjoyed success from the get-go with more than 100 referrals in the first few months of its rebirth.
Targeted and flora and fauna named operations—Poppy, Daffodil, and Ivy— resulted in the growing success of Opal as its influence began to take root. During this time there were more than sixty arrests from Opal identified groups, two deportations, and a number of lengthy custodial sentences.
In August 2023, the year before Pegasus was launched, the national statistics revealed a 31 per cent increase in three commercial crime types—shoplifting (store theft), commercial burglary, and robbery of a business premises. One year later after the re-focused launch of Opal, the growth trajectory had slowed to just one per cent.
Head of Intelligence at Opal Stephanie Coombes who reports directly into Head of Unit Jim Taylor, has become the public face of Opal for the retail and hospitality community, presenting and communicating the role of the unit to garner more support.
On top of her day job, she has attended and presented at dozens of forums, conferences, round tables, and business seminars as part of a wider collaboration and public relations exercise to provide success updates and demonstrate the value of Opal in reduced organised and acquisitive crime.
A law graduate and former West Mercia police civilian employee, Stephanie, who scooped the Fraud Awards "Rising Star of the Year" accolade in 2024 picked up the Organised Retail Crime brief after returning from maternity leave and has continued to parent Opal with the support of her team and the wider business community ever since.
Originally supported by three analysts, three intelligence development officers, a researcher, and two intelligence managers there were three key objectives:
- Maintaining a single focus on the threats and a consistent standard approach.
- An effective process to allow retailers to feed into law enforcement through case referrals for Opal to triage.
- Delivery of results to maintain stakeholder engagement.
Fusion Cell
There swiftly followed further development of the Opal concept around these objectives resulting in the planned establishment of the grandly titled "Fusion Cell" which was introduced to provide an intelligence repository to combine data from retailers with law enforcement capabilities to effectively identify, assess, and manage threats.
The Fusion Cell—which also offers a "self-service interactive partner portal" for retailers to share intelligence—will continue to act as a central hub from where Opal can more readily identify and disrupt organised criminal activity.
The cell will also map high harm locations allowing for targeted partnership, problem-solving, and intervention.
The initiative aims to create a "single version of the truth" regarding retail crime threats, moving beyond individual incidents to address the root causes of criminality.
"The Fusion Cell will form part of the 'Tackling Retail Crime Together' strategy with the National Business Crime Centre (NBCC) and is a major piece of the Opal landscape," said Stephanie.
"We hold a lot of information from over forty forces around retail crime and high harm locations—we know where the threat is and how we can help."
"The interactive partner portal is a way of automating the process and sharing information with stakeholders— they can have this information at their fingertips, and it contains information and insights specific to their areas—it will highlight threats and work as a one-stop-shop for information."
Successes in 2025
The Opal team has made dramatic inroads over the last six years, culminating in a bumper crop of arrests and prosecutions last year and influencing the Government to increase the unit's funding.
During 2025 Opal's work positively impacted thirty-one of the UK's police forces as part of its strategy of disruption of organised crime gangs. Overall, it saw a 73 per cent reduction in offending and the targeting of specific identified offenders linked to £2.5 million worth of loss to Opal's retail partners.
During the year, Opal's activities saw 1,470 positive outcomes, with seventy referrals from retail partners and thirty-six adopted operations.
Of the 221 identified individuals, there were 128 arrests, and fifty-eight property seizures including thirty-two vehicles. There were 73 court outcomes resulting in ninety years of custodial sentences, fourteen deportations, and 405 intelligence products created and shared.
Operation Buttercup saw Opal operating with Interpol's "blue notices" and eleven UK forces that were impacted by the travelling gang of retail thieves. This resulted in deportations for their involvement in twenty-five offences generating almost £30,000 worth of loss. The judge particularly identified one perpetrator's history of European offending which was secured via Opal's intelligence gathering.
Operation Cherry identified twin brothers for fraud and committing twenty-one knifepoint robberies across eighteen force areas who were brought to justice by Opal. A total of £32,463 was taken during robberies with more than £350,000 lost to fraud. Both were sentenced to almost seven years in prison.
Overall, as a result of Opal's wider brief, in the last twelve months, figures reveal that 32 per cent of retail crime was linked to ORC and accounts for a staggering 93 per cent of the total losses. In other industries, ORC represented 17 per cent of the offending and 59 per cent of total losses.
Almost a third—31 per cent—of operations adopted by Opal were linked to polycriminality including connections to modern slavery and human trafficking, vehicle crime, fraud, sexual exploitation, and residential burglary.
The results of Opal's proof-of-concept led the Government to announce continued support until 2028. Last year it announced that Opal was to receive an additional £5 million over the next three years.
The money is being used to fund more analysts and intelligence development officers as part of an enhanced capability around travelling retail crime. These staff will continue to liaise with stakeholders including law enforcement officers and industry, both nationally and internationally in order to establish contacts, link investigations to identify MOs and suspects as well as establishing and sharing good practice.
Supply Chain Focus
For 2026, Opal has now widened its brief to the wider supply chain where criminal intelligence remains buried treasure.
"We are now setting up a supply chain theft team with enhanced capability looking at the wider challenges, including final mile delivery," said Stephanie who will be working with industry groups including NaVCIS and TruckPol.
The UK freight industry is already forming its own unstoppable convoy as it looks to work more collaboratively with Government to fight organised freight crime at a time when a major piece of private members legislation to tackle the issue makes its way through Parliament.
According to British Retail Consortium (BRC) figures, the average value of items stolen in a shoplifting incident is £119, whereas the average cost of a trailer theft before the items have reached the store is a staggering £46,000. The values are miles apart, but the latter, which arguably pushes up the price of consumer goods more rapidly than the store theft, has been left standing when it comes to law enforcement resource.
As the law stands, whether it is a multi-million-pound consignment of iPhones, high-end fashion and accessories, or a trailer-load of tobacco products, the crime is simply classified by the Home Office as a "theft from vehicle"—the same definition applied to stealing a pair of sunglasses from a family car, for example.
Driving the change is the Freight Crime Bill, first introduced in March 2025 by North Warwickshire and Bedworth MP Rachel Taylor to address the growing issue of freight crime.
The Road Haulage Association (RHA) and Logistics UK are heavily supporting the Bill due to rising crime costs, which are estimated to exceed £111 million annually.
The Bill—which awaits its second reading early in 2026 in the House of Commons—seeks to create a specific crime code (different from general vehicle theft), better security at truck stops, and dedicated funding for specialised police units like NaVCIS.
When fully implemented the Bill will also provide:
- Improved data collection: A specific code would enable police forces to record and track incidents, which is currently not consistently required, leading to a lack of reliable data. This data would help identify hotspots and inform a national strategy.
- Better police response: With a dedicated code, police call handlers could ask specific questions and follow tailored procedures, leading to faster and more appropriate responses from law enforcement.
- Increased clarity in law: It aims to provide greater proportionality in sentencing by creating a distinct offence which could improve the enforceability of laws related to freight crime.
- Enhanced security and trust: By creating a more robust framework for tackling freight crime, the Bill is intended to boost confidence in the logistics sector, which is critical for the economy.
From a law enforcement perspective, it is supported by the NaVCIS and Opal, the forces of which combined could at last be putting crime fighting in retail supply chain back in the driving seat.
To this end, Opal, under the stewardship of Opal's head of operations DCI Kate Brummell, launched its supply chain focus this month (March 2026) and will be supported by three further analysts and three intelligence development officers and will follow the same protocols as retail crime in establishing working collaborative engagement with the freight industry and those impacted retailers who fall victim to highway heists.
The Organised Supply Chain Desk (SCD) will provide central intelligence co-ordination and development, analytical capability, and investigative support to forces and complement the Freight Crime Desk within NaVCIS.
In addition, there will be one financial investigator and one financial analyst as well as a tactical advisor to assist in how to progress investigations into a specific force.
Scope
The SCD will focus on organised, serious, and repeat criminal activity impacting the supply chain. In-scope activity falls into two categories:
- Theft and Diversion of Goods from HGVs, trailers, containers, and freight vehicles (not limited to 7.5 tonnes and above), and also from warehouses and distribution centres and compounds. Cargo theft at ports, rail terminals, and logistics hubs are also in scope as are load diversion and the fraudulent re-routing of goods. Insider threats where collusion is involved is also added to the SCD agenda.
- Fraudulent haulage contracts or impersonation of legitimate logistics operators as well as "ghost" or cloned haulage companies will also be on the Opal manifest.
This opens up opportunities for more supply businesses to liaise directly with Opal.
"The businesses we deal with are vital to help us—they sometimes don't appreciate what they are sitting on and how we could use that information," said Stephanie.
"We want to know who the truck thieves are, their levels of organisation, are they travelling as part of a wider ORC team, where the goods are going, and how are they recruiting people."
"By its very nature, supply chain theft is organised and complex—we want to make it more simplistic which we can achieve through intelligence sharing," she said.
Following this model, Opal is also engaged with National Retail Crime Alliance (NRCA)—formerly the NBCS—as part of its Operation Sale initiative looking at the disposal routes for illicit goods such as car boot sales.
"Three years ago, there were fewer than ten of us," added Stephanie.
"Now we are around forty-strong. But Opal is not here to build a kingdom but to help our collaborators and stakeholders to make sense of the intelligence they have to share and how it is used to disrupt criminal activity and markets, as well as progress investigations with specific forces as part of the upstream development," she added.
As a gemstone, the Opal has the rare quality of being able to be both opaque and transparent, factors determined by the conditions of its formation and its classification.
Opal in police intelligence terms has been formed with the specific intention of making the opaque transparent to the point that it is proving invaluable in the assistance of disrupting and reducing organised and acquisitive crime.
It has become a rare diamond in the rough and could shine a light on the future shape and cut of policing in the 21st century as its direction of travel follows the trajectory of Government thinking around collaborative partnership between public and private intelligence sharing.
