OPAL and Safer Business Network - An Exciting Partnership

Great to meet with Stephanie Coombes from Opal SOAC team this week to talk about tackling serious organised acquisitive crime and how we can work more closely together.

For those who don’t know, OPAL is the national intelligence unit focused on organised crime that spans multiple police force areas, including Scotland and Northern Ireland. They play a key role in gathering intelligence and coordinating responses to high-impact offenders targeting businesses and communities.

At Safer Business Network, our intelligence-sharing platforms and partnerships with businesses already give us a unique insight into the groups operating across the different areas we operate in. By sharing this intelligence with OPAL and local police teams, we can help build a clearer picture of organised crime networks and support efforts to disrupt them, whilst always looking for vulnerabilities and exploitation.

Discussions included:
🔹 Tactical responses to organised crime groups (OCGs)
🔹 How our intelligence services can support OPAL’s investigations
🔹 Collaborating with retailers to identify and target high-harm offenders

By working together across the public and private sector, we can make our high streets and business communities safer. Looking forward to building on this partnership!