NATIONAL Security Minister Peter Bunting yesterday launched the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Task Force (MOCA), which he says will go after crime kingpins and their facilitators, including lawyers, bankers and other public officials.

He said the task force will also investigate cyber crimes.

“Targeting these top bosses and their facilitators is a most effective way of degrading criminal networks, seizing their assets and undermining their power, which ultimately allows the network to be permanently dismantled,” said Bunting, noting that MOCA was formed as part of the priority recommendation out of the 2012/2016 National Security Policy.

“This morning really signals a change in policy emphasis. We are shifting the focus from street-level criminals to target the top bosses — the kingpins — and perhaps more importantly, will be our focus on the people who handle the money… the facilitators,” he said.

The launch took place at the Police Officers’ Club in St Andrew.

Bunting theorised that without monetary profits, criminals will desist from executing crimes, and targeting the ‘facilitators’ will both assist with crime-fighting efforts on the ground as well as prevent ill-gotten funds from being laundered or sent overseas out of the reach of the jurisdiction of local law enforcers.

“It is the facilitators who protect organised crime and who allow it to flourish. They are also major beneficiaries of organised crime as they take a significant percentage of the profits,” he said.

“Criminals are not in the business of trafficking narcotics or weapons. They are in the business of making money. Crime is motivated primarily by profit and the only way to permanently reduce the level of crime is to take the profit out of crime,” he added.

MOCA has as part of its logo an octopus, which represents the many tentacles of organised crime with which the security forces have to grapple. The task force has representatives from the Jamaica Constabulary Force, the Jamaica Defence Force, the Financial Investigations Divisions, the Taxpayer Audit and Assessment Department, among others.

Unlike other task forces, Bunting said MOCA will be very selective in the cases which it targets.

Yesterday, he pleaded to members of the public to assist the task force by reporting corrupt activities to the body.