Since its launch in 2001, the UK's National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) has tracked down dozens of criminals who use the internet to carry out crimes such as blackmail, money-laundering and theft.

The unit has made 172 arrests and conducted 72 operations and passed on vital intelligence to law enforcement agencies around the world.

Close co-operation with the IT vendor community and businesses that have been targeted by organised online criminals has played an important role in foiling these high-tech heists, says the NHTCU's new head, detective chief superintendent Sharon Lemon.

In one operation, named Catterick, the NHTCU discovered that Russian extortionists had laundered £1.3m over a period of 90 days, after using denial of service (DoS) attacks to blackmail dozens of UK betting sites. Intelligence gathered from chatrooms by DoS mitigation firm Prolexic provided the NHTCU and the Russian law enforcement agencies with the contact details of one of the suspected eastern European ringleaders.

'We have to work with partners to combat crime and devise meaningful crime reduction strategies,' says Lemon. 'We want to pre-empt and disrupt criminal activity before it emerges.'

The NHTCU's confidentiality charter has also improved the flow of intelligence coming in from businesses that have been attacked. The knowledge that the details of the case will not be made public makes victims feel more confident in reporting the crime, she says.

'If a company says it has lost its customer database, that doesn't encourage people to go to it, but we give an assurance that we will keep this information confidential,' says Lemon.

'We fully appreciate the sanctity of the brand, and would never do anything to damage it.'

The international nature of internet crime is also leading the unit to strengthen partnerships with law enforcement agencies in Brazil, eastern Europe and China.

'Organised criminal groups have always had a hierarchy, but the new internet-based ones are different. They are based on respecting each others' skills sets, and this extends internationally,' says Lemon.

'We are building some very good relationships with eastern European law enforcement agencies. We are also using intelligence to ensure that we are working with the countries we believe the next threats will come from.'

On 1 April next year, the NHTCU will become part of the newly created Serious and Organised Crime Agency (Soca), along with the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad, as well as the units fighting drug trafficking at HM Customs and Excise and organised immigration crime at the Home Office.

'We hope it will help improve intelligence flows and build more effective partnerships. The knowledge and skills of these different agencies will help to reduce harm and prevent high-tech crimes,' says Lemon.

As computer-related crime becomes increasingly organised, the unified Soca will help co-ordinate information gathering and improve communication with other international agencies, such as the FBI, according to Lemon.

'All the people I speak to, whether it's in law enforcement or the public sector, agree that the days when people wrote viruses just for fun have gone, as the potential for making money has come to the fore,' she says.

Lemon believes that crime prevention is better than cure, and that means more businesses and home PC users need to be educated. They need to know how their systems can be breached, and how criminals can use their PCs as tools to launch DoS attacks and distribute spam and phishing emails.

Lemon plans to launch a consumer advice web site in September as part of Project Endurance. This public and private computer security initiative will play a key role in educating home PC users and small businesses, she says.

'An anti-virus firm recently told me that if people took steps to protect their home PCs, then the number of botnets getting onto PCs would be reduced by 60 per cent,' says Lemon.

'But the problem is that the wealth of information coming from everywhere has only served to create confusion at one end of the spectrum and complacency at the other. We have reached the stage where a large number of more mature PC users are not buying anything online because they are worried about identity theft.'

An education and awareness package for home PC users will also be available as part of the three- to five-year Endurance educational project.

'We're looking to build on the successes of the NHTCU, but at the same time recognise that in an IT environment there are constant changes,' says Lemon.

A brief history of the NHTCU,

The Home Secretary announced the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) to Parliament in November 2000. The unit works with local authorities and international intelligence organisations to expose organised crime syndicates involved in viruses, extortion, fraud, hacking, drug trafficking and child abuse.

Computer crime cost UK businesses more than £2.4bn last year, with 89 per cent of firms suffering some form of computer crime during this period. About 83 per cent of firms suffered virus attacks in 2004, 10 per cent suffered information theft, 14 per cent reported denial of service attacks and 11 per cent hacking attempts.

Recent successes by NHTCU include the arrest of 12 eastern Europeans who stole more than £6m from online banking customers through phishing scams.