The National Crime Agency (NCA) is carrying out 10 investigations into the proceeds of crime in the north, the Policing Board has been told.
NCA director general Graeme Biggar told the board that one of the civil probes related to suspected assets of £3.5 million.
Mr Biggar updated the board on the work of the NCA in tackling organised crime in the north.
North Belfast MLA Nuala McAllister asked about the agency’s role in combating paramilitarism.
Mr Biggar said: “The main thing we are adding is the work we are doing on civil recovery, rather than criminal investigation.
“Going after the money which is the product of crime, rather than the individuals and prosecuting them for crimes that have taken place.
“We have 10 civil recovery investigations ongoing at the moment in Northern Ireland.
“We do proportionally much more of this in Northern Ireland than we do anywhere else in the UK just because of the impact we think it can have and the importance that we attach to it.”
He told the board that one investigation related to £350,000 worth of assets in a case where there is suspected money laundering and tax evasion. Another relates to a case of suspected money laundering worth £250,000.
Mr Biggar said there was a long-running investigation in relation to suspected criminal assets of £3.5 million which he said he hoped would come to a conclusion soon.
PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Davy Beck referenced the working relationship between police and the NCA in Northern Ireland. He said the PSNI was dealing with hundreds of referrals from the NCA in cases of potential indecent images of children.
Assistant Chief Constable Davy Beck said the PSNI and the NCA worked closely together (Mark Marlow/PA)
He said: “In the last financial year we received in the region of 820 referrals from NCA in respect of that activity that requires investigation and further research.
“If you turn the clock back 10, 12 years, we were receiving around 60 to 80 referrals.
“Last year it was 820, this year we are in the early stages of the financial year but we are seeing an increase of about 120%.”
Mr Beck also referred to the work of the multi-agency Paramilitary Crime Task Force (PCTF).
He said its work was focused on six groups – East Belfast UVF, West Belfast UDA, Belfast INLA, North West INLA, South East Antrim UDA and North Antrim UDA.
Mr Beck said: “Those are the main groups we focus on in respect of the potential harm those groups are causing to the local communities.
“Those groups are involved in a wide range of criminality including, but not limited to, assaults, shootings, supply and distribution of controlled drugs, extortion, intimidation, money lending and money laundering.”
Mr Biggar told the board about the emergence of a new group of cybercriminals called The Com.
He said: “It is a grouping of online gangs of boys with a nihilistic, misogynistic bent who focus on grooming and coercing often young girls into abusing themselves and into self harm.
“This is particularly an English-speaking phenomenon at the moment, it does not appear to have spread to the rest of the world but it causes enormous harm to the individuals that get involved in it.”
He said there had been a number of prosecutions in the rest of the UK.
Mr Biggar added: “We have not had incidences of this play out that we have seen in Northern Ireland yet, we don’t have any active investigations in relation to Northern Ireland, but that will come.
“That is just an inevitable part of what we are dealing with.
“It is the latest manifestation of the challenges that come from living life online.”