This comes in the wake of the conviction of Thomas Cashman, 34, for the fatal shooting of Olivia Pratt-Korbel, 9, in August 2022.
Cashman was pursuing rival gangster Joseph Nee, 36, when the hit went wrong and he killed Olivia and shot her Mum Cheryl Korbel.
Professor Coxhead, a two-time winner of the Queen’s Award for Innovation in Police Learning, said that Olivia’s murder was a “symptom” of an international drug ecosystem where giant underground businesses make “absolutely astonishing” amounts of money.
He told Express.co.uk: “They’re making more than Spain’s GDP”.
Professor Coxhead said domestic UK gang crime can be traced up to what he calls “organised crime businesses” which are “orchestrating” the illegal drugs and firearms industries in the UK.
He explained that these businesses are “drug franchises” operating on a global scale and claimed that the firms involved are “bigger than McDonald’s”.
According to the Millennium Project, transnational organised crime pulls in more than “$4.7 trillion per year”, however due to the underground nature of the trade, the think tank estimates the true figure may be closer to “$10 trillion”.
The World Bank’s figures show that the GDP of France was in 2021 almost $3 trillion.
