The director-general of Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) has warned that hostile states are using organised criminals to commit illegal activity in the UK.

Speaking at Westminister, NCA head Graeme Biggar reportedly said that North Korea has been using cybercrime to steal funds and cryptocurrency.

"The Russian state has long tolerated and occasionally tasked the cybercrime groups on its territory, and had links with its oligarchs and their enablers,” he continued, as reported by Sky News. "And over the last year we have seen hostile states beginning to use organised crime groups - not always of the same nationality - as proxies.”

Biggar added that three quarters of fraud is committed overseas, warning that generative AI is now being used to make fraudulent activity more convincing through deep fake videos, while text created from ChatGPT is also being used to develop more believable phishing emails.

In his speech, he also said that developments in certain technologies, including end-to-end encryption, have been making the NCA’s job harder.

"Law enforcement, including the NCA, needs to do more to be at the leading edge of new technology: this will require collective vision and sustained investment," he continued. "And, secondly, we need more effective strategic partnership from technology companies.

"This is about responsible behaviour about designing public safety into their products alongside privacy, so that we all reap the benefits from technology, rather than suffering their consequences."

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