FBI-style agency unveiled

Major new powers to smash organised crime gangs were unveiled today, including offers of immunity for criminals who turn supergrass.

An FBI-style national agency will be formed with 5,000 investigators dedicated to breaking up Britain's biggest rackets estimated to earn some £40 billion a year for criminal godfathers. It is the first national police agency in Britain and is aimed at mounting the most sustained attack yet on internationalgangs masterminding drug imports, people smuggling and serious fraud.

Officers will be trained by MI5 and work more closely with the security service, MI6 and the listening post GCHQ to share intelligence and eavesdrop on gangs.

They will be officially encouraged to be "audacious" in their tactics. Home Secretary David Blunkett unveiled the plans today as a row continued over claims the Government had used crime Bills in the Queen's Speech to create a "climate of fear" before the election.

The Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill will be one of the

few of the 32 Bills outlined to be rushed into law before the election. It will put plea-bargaining onto a statutory basis for the first time, meaning that criminals who "turn Queen's Evidence" could win immunity from prosecution or get softer sentences in return for shopping their criminal godfathers.

Attempts to run a supergrass system in the past have proved highly controversial, especially in Northern Ireland where terrorists were accused of giving false evidence to escape prosecution.

But Mr Blunkett is impressed with the success of American plea-bargaining which hugely weakened the mafia.

Fewer than one per cent of drugs cases in Britain see defendants give evidence against their bosses compared with over a quarter of cases in the US.

In another radical move, the

Bill will enable powers to force major criminals to hand over their bank statements for up to 10 years after release from jail to prove they have gone straight. The crime-fighting blitz will include:

The Bill will also give police powers to ban animal extremists from outside the homes of scientists involved in vivisection and create a new offence of inciting religious hatred to protect faith groups, especially Muslims, from hate attacks.

Soca is due to begin work in 2006, replacing the National Crime Squad, the National Criminal Intelligence Service and investigation teams at HM Customs and Excise and the Immigration Service.