Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair launched on Monday a national crime-fighting unit modelled on the United States' FBI, with the aim of tackling the major gangs behind crimes such as people trafficking and drug smuggling. The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), which will have a staff of around 5,000, will tackle drug traffickers, people-smugglers, global paedophile networks and sophisticated fraudsters. Launching the unit at Downing Street, the prime minister said that the time had come to end the "tyranny" brought by organised crime. "We know this organised criminal activity takes place. The level of sophistication, the level, frankly, of brutality, with which many of these gangs operate today, means that we have to (operate) differently. There is absolutely nothing in my view that should come before the basic liberties of people in this country to be freed from the tyranny . . . of this type of organised crime. We will do everything we possibly can to achieve that."