Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2008 7:04 pm

When the EAW was created, each country in the EU was called upon to designate an agency to receive EAWs when they were issued by member states.

Initially, the designated agency in the UK was the National Criminal Intelligence Service.

When the Serious Organised Crime & Police Act of 2005 passed and SOCA was created in April 2006, the National Criminal Intelligence Service was abolished and its functions absorbed within SOCA.

http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/news/c ... eaw_en.pdf

Ever since, SOCA has been the agency designated to be the first recipient of an EAW when it arrives in the UK.

From the SOCA web site:

SOCA acts as the UK point of contact for Interpol, Europol and Sirene (Schengen). In this capacity SOCA maintains the following functions:

Single point of contact for International enquiries from SOCA and all UK Police and law enforcement agencies.
24/7 capacity for Interpol with direct connections to their databases and provides a specialist service to Europol through our Europol Liaison Officers.
Coordination of all inbound and outbound Cross Border Surveillance requests with Schengen partners.
Dedicated Fugitives Unit that acts as the UK Central Authority for all European Arrest Warrants (EAW).

http://www.soca.gov.uk/NCB.html