Wednesday 8 February 2017

It's "low-HANGING fruit", you bozo!

From the BBC:

"The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) defended the practice of paying informants - or covert human intelligence sources as they are officially known.

Deputy Chief Constable Roger Bannister, the council's lead on the issue, said: "The intelligence provided helps to prevent and solve the most serious of crimes and is vital in bringing offenders to justice through the courts."

But Neil Wood, who worked as an undercover police officer and ran many informants, told Radio 5 live the tactic has its limitations when it comes to drugs.

"Nobody wants to inform on the drug lords because of fears of violent reprisals, so it's only the low-lying fruit that gets caught out - and the trade continues regardless. Nobody can call that effective. Overall it does little to bring down the level of overall crime."

3 comments:

Sackerson said...

He was probably thinking of strawberries.

Steven_L said...

Not only do they pay small time criminals and down and outs for 'intelligence', they also spend a lot of money embedding CID officers, buying drugs and (and this one beggars belief the most) visiting brothels.

I have it from two reliable sources. One of the perks of being a copper is being paid to visit brothels to 'gather intelligence'. They claim that they only get a massage and don't let the girls go any further. Yeah right, I believe that.

Bayard said...

Well, since the small dealers are obvious low lifes probably keeping a low profile by lying low, he could be right, unless one of the bigger fish has strung them up from a lamppost with a long piece of rope. He probably has doubts about the veracity of their information, too.