Latest E-Magazine Published
We have now published the 13th edition of our online e-magazine, which can be viewed by clicking the link below.
The e-magazine is published on a quarterly basis and provides key partners and stakeholders with an update on the programme as well as includes feature pieces on some of the fantastic national and regional collaborative work being undertaken in the fight against organised exploitation.
This edition includes a feature on the recent independent evaluation of two of our tools — Translate and Transcribe — alongside insightful case studies, the latest FMSE guidance, and a recent award win we’re proud to celebrate.
We hope you enjoy reading this edition and share with others.
Click here to read the e-magazine
Strategic Update
The TOEX Programme has a reputation for both delivery and innovation which continues to grow as we enter our fifth year of operations. The regional teams thrive on force taskings, where they can bring their intelligence and analytics expertise to bear on investigations which have sometimes been frustrated locally by their scale and complexity. We often reach out to forces for feedback on this support, then refine the model and further improve the service across our national network.
This edition will provide a couple of succinct case studies, focussed on our North-East team, however, there are many other ways in which TOEX can support threats in your force/organisation. TOEX are supporting the tactical delivery for financially motivated sexual extortion (FMSE) as part of a National Crime Agency Threat Group, following the tragic deaths of several child victims. TOEX ops work is looking at ways in which we can collaboratively identify and disrupt organised exploitation across FMSE threats nationally.
Proactive TOEX work in the Southeast looking at crossovers between UCOL identifiers has been helping to the identify suspects sharing IIOC and arranging contact offences with children known to them.
TOEX are also supporting the Online Harms working group by providing technical and operational assistance to cases where typically young girls are being coerced into acts of a sexual nature, self-harm, torture, and animal abuse.
We were very fortunate to receive an uplift to our Home Office grant this year, which has enabled the recruitment of more operational resources, but also the ongoing incremental expansion of our technical workstreams. This financial year, TOEX will be increasing access to the Capabilities Environment and hosted tools to a minimum of 15 forces - as we approach 1 billion characters translated and £16.5 million saving opportunities.
Finally, the delivery of advanced analytics to the nine forces accessing the outputs of our Data Platform has expanded further. In addition to operational analytics supporting positive action on VAWG, Missing Persons and ViSOR nominals, we have now provided access to users in each force to a bespoke product to help disrupt child sexual exploitation, leveraging TOEX Scan Assist technology (AI entity extraction and matching).
This tool maps 90 days of; CSE intelligence reports, sexual offences crimes involving children and CSE flagged missing person reports, then expands across all held records for those individuals.
CSE intelligence and events are relatively rare for most individuals, meaning analysis of CSE information can make it difficult to understand how affected/at-risk persons are linked. By analysing the data in this way, it targets analysis towards groupings/cohorts. It also overcomes the silo nature of different data sources by bringing them together in a consolidated and structured way. The ‘cohort algorithm’ identifies high density anchor persons, and spiders out across their links until density diminishes. The PBi data modelling is then exportable to i2 Analyst’s notebook for force use.
Please contact your regional TOEX team for more information on how we can help.
Detective Chief Superintendent
Kate Thacker KPM
TOEX Programme Director
Unlocking Efficiency: How TOEX Translate & Transcribe Tools are Reshaping Police Investigations
An independent evaluation, commissioned by the Home Office AI team and delivered by Open Innovation, has highlighted how two powerful TOEX tools are changing the way policing tackles digital investigations: TOEX Translate and TOEX Transcribe.
In summary, the report concludes that when used well, these AI-driven solutions don’t just save time — they boost investigative quality and deliver significant cost benefits.
TOEX Translate: Turning Data Overload into Actionable Intelligence
In the modern policing landscape, devices seized during investigations often hold vast amounts of data. Sifting through it manually can be a resource-intensive task. TOEX Translate is a tool designed to rapidly translate large volumes of data, offering officers access to material that might have otherwise remained locked away.
According to the evaluation, the tool has had a clear and positive impact on investigations. Not only did it make data processing more efficient, but it also translated material that previously would have been dismissed due to time and resource constraints.
In addition, the evaluation highlights the financial implications. By using the market value of translated material to assess its benefits, the tool delivered a net benefit of between £8,200 and £231,600 per force, depending on usage levels. For TOEX, the savings soar to more than £14 million in the year leading up to February 2025, largely because the teams have used the tool more extensively than individual forces.
To conclude, crucially, much of this translated content would have gone untouched without TOEX Translate’s intervention.
TOEX Transcribe: Maximising the Value
TOEX Transcribe is designed to support the transcription of formal police interviews; however, the report identifies that the tool’s effectiveness is linked to whether it is used as intended and also how well it was implemented in force.
When used as intended, by officers who previously carried out their own transcriptions, the evaluation confirms the tool delivers notable time and cost savings while enhancing investigation quality. However, in cases where it replaced existing transcription typists, the result was less favourable with transcription tasks shifted from lower-paid administrative staff to higher-paid officers, inadvertently increasing costs and workloads. This wasn’t a fault of the tool itself, but improved implementation in force could have alleviated these negative experiences.
Quantitative analysis mirrored these qualitative insights: when TOEX Transcribe was deployed correctly, its benefits far outweighed its costs.
Next Steps: Recommendations for the Future
The evaluation concluded with six recommendations for the Home Office, aimed at refining TOEX implementation and addressing broader systemic challenges, such as the integration of third-party tools and sustainable funding strategies. Four of these recommendations relate directly to enhancing the deployment of TOEX tools within forces, ensuring that the right people use them in the right way for maximum impact.
This independent review confirms what frontline users have been reporting: TOEX Translate and Transcribe can transform digital investigations when deployed wisely. As technology continues to evolve, these tools represent a critical step in modernising investigative practices, unlocking both operational and financial efficiencies for police forces across the country.
TOEX Spotlight: NEROCU
In every edition of the e-magazine, we will now feature one of our regional teams, highlighting the support they’re providing to forces including case studies, events they’ve attended and best practice they’ve shared with the TOEX network.
This quarter, our spotlight is on the NEROCU team.
Team News
In March 2025, a new TOEX manager began leading the NEROCU team. Detective Inspector Mark Thompson has joined the North East ROCU from Northumbria Police Counter Corruption Team replacing Dave Green who retired after 30 years of service. Mark, an experienced Detective and SIO, manages the TOEX team in addition to the Regional Intelligence Unit.
North East SOC Conference
On 25th and 26th March the North East ROCU held a SOC conference, inviting specialist guest speakers from law enforcement agencies to speak to delegates from across policing and wider partnerships.
TOEX was represented at the event by DS Chris Mootien, who attended with Intel Analysts Joseph Franchi, Courtney Farrar and Helen Williamson, alongside TOEX D/Insp Mark Thompson and TOEX Ops and Performance Manager Geoff Hurst. Geoff covered a stall over the two days speaking to conference attendees, highlighting how the TOEX Operating Model supports forces with complex investigations. This also allowed TOEX to network with other SOC capabilities, some of which have since contacted TOEX about collaborative opportunities.
On day two of the conference, DS Chris Mootien presented alongside Darlington Trading Standards, describing how the North East Trading Standards and TOEX are tackling the threat of vape supply linked to exploitation. TOEX were able to showcase the work they are carrying out under Op Everett, including how the TOEX Data Insight Analysts and tech tools are used to understand the current threat – more on this in the below case study.
Operation Everett
Operation Everett is an intelligence development process conducted by the North East TOEX team seeking to identify any links between the supply of vape devices to underage/vulnerable persons and child sexual exploitation (CSE) and/or child criminal exploitation (CCE).
This work began in 2023 when TOEX were approached by partners from Trading Standards along with representatives from the three police forces that had experienced an increase in incidents where the supply of vapes were being used as an incentive for grooming.
Operation Everett collates intelligence regionally and from partners utilising bespoke technology and deploys dedicated resources from TOEX. The team’s Data Insight Analyst and Researcher play a pivotal role in the process of scraping and reviewing the intelligence which is then produced into a bi-monthly report and sent to the police leads for Durham, Cleveland, and Northumbria Police along with Trading Standards.
As a result of this work, the North East TOEX Team have built good relationships with local partners enabling them to share a deeper understanding of any threats revealed by the Op Everett process. This not only helps the awareness of partners when determining their own response, but also helps apply a multi-agency approach to tackling this threat, increasing disruption and safeguarding opportunities.
Operation Everett is now regarded as best practice and in April 2025, the team presented the working process and practices to the rest of the TOEX network - many other regions are now looking to apply the same process for their teams.
Adult Sexual Exploitation Case Study:
In the summer of 2024, whilst developing intelligence around property enablers, members of the TOEX team discovered intelligence relating to Romanian females offering sexual services via adult sex websites.
The team began to proactively develop the intelligence around the females and adverts they used, which identified that they were being paid for by several men. Further development on these males showed links to various operations across the UK involving sex workers mostly from Romania. The intelligence picture suggested the ‘boyfriend model’ was being used to sexually exploit females, moving them from Romania into the UK and elsewhere.
Liaison took place between the TOEX North East and national teams to identify best practice and subject-matter experts to assist with progressing this piece of work. This quickly led to discussion with the National Crime Agency (NCA) where a decision was made to show the operating model at its full scale.
The North East TOEX team were able to show a cross-region footprint within the UK, but also that linked criminality existed outside of the UK in Europe. The team linked in directly with Romanian law enforcement regarding an offender, who had already come to the attention of their authorities.
The work conducted by the TOEX team, directly enriched the size and scale of the intelligence picture, with the NCA adopting the operation, enabling them to pursue joint working with counterparts in Romania.
New Financially Motivated Sexual Extortion Guidance
The Hydrant Programme and the National Crime Agency (NCA) have jointly developed two important documents to enhance the investigation of Financially Motivated Sexual Extortion (FMSE).
Practice Advice for Investigating draws upon a comprehensive learning and evidence base to provide one easy to navigate document for Senior Investigating Officers and investigators and is designed to be used as a knowledge tool for learning.
Guidance for First Responders provides frontline officers with information on how to respond to FMSE cases where the victim is a child and is a shorter reference document to be kept on a laptop or in the go bag. Please contact [email protected] for copies to be shared with your force.
FMSE is a type of online blackmail where victims are forced into paying money or meeting another financial demand after an offender has threatened to release nudes, semi-nudes, or fake manipulated images of them. FMSE is not sexually motivated. It may also be referred to as ‘sextortion’ however, ‘sextortion’ is broader as it is commonly used to describe sexually and financially motivated offences.
FMSE is committed by offenders motivated by money who are predominantly based overseas (86% of cases have an overseas offender), frequently from Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, and the Philippines. These offences are believed to be being committed by individual perpetrators and those connected to a wider network. There have been significant global increases in FMSE cases in recent years.[1]
Victims can be of any age, but when the victim is under 18 this is also a form of child sexual abuse. Boys and young men are more likely to be victims of FMSE than females. This threat is known to be causing serious harm and there have been several suicides and self-harm of children as a direct result of being victims of FMSE.
This guidance is being released as part of a wider programme of work to combat the FMSE threat. The NCA have recently produced an Industry Alert (April 2025) which provides insights to social media companies, using law enforcement’s operational learning of FMSE. The alert provides a list of signals, which platforms can use to detect and prevent offenders from operating on their platforms, as well as identify potential victims. It is intended to support a collaborative approach between law enforcement and the tech industry, through improved information sharing and detection.
To contact the team and discuss how they can support, visit Support for forces | The Hydrant Programme or email [email protected].
Excellence in Global Online Protection Awards 2025
On 20th May, the CSE Taskforce communications team, which comprises of staff from the TOEX and Hydrant Programmes, won an Excellence in Global Online Protection Award for Victim Support. The award recognises a project, campaign, or initiative, that has demonstrated an exceptional commitment to supporting victims of online child sexual abuse.
The award was given in recognition of the national ‘When You Are Ready’ campaign — a powerful project featuring the voices of victims and survivors of child sexual abuse and exploitation, who bravely shared their living experiences to offer hope and solidarity to others.
The award stated that the campaign serves as a powerful example of a trauma-informed, survivor-led initiative that has had a meaningful impact on raising awareness and supporting victims and survivors of child sexual abuse and exploitation. By prioritising the voices of those directly affected, the campaign has not only provided vital support, but has empowered survivors to share their stories and seek healing.
The communications team work tirelessly to ensure that victims and survivors are always are the core of their work and this award recognises those efforts - a massive congratulations to the team!
Det Chief Superintendent Kate Thacker said, “What a richly deserved award. The whole team has contributed towards a class-leading product for victims, where the voices of childhood victims can be heard, and the survivor experience used to model improvements to public services in the future.”
To find out more about the When You Are Ready campaign, please click here