Case Explained: New Year Honours: King awards eight National Crime Agency officers – Legal Perspective

An investigator who led the dismantling of one of the largest cybercrime groups in the world and a legal expert who supported the prosecution of hundreds of dangerous criminals are among the National Crime Agency (NCA) officers recognised in the King’s New Year Honours this year.

Thousands of NCA officers are working around the clock, across the world to protect people in the UK from the most harmful serious and organised crime.Among the eight of them receiving honours for their services to law enforcement are:

Gavin Webb OBE, 51 – Regional Head of Investigations, Multi-Threat and Borders

Gavin has been awarded for his “tenacity and leadership” as the senior investigating officer of a ground-breaking operation to dismantle the largest ransomware group in the world. LockBit was responsible for a quarter of all global ransomware attacks between 2023 and 2024. The group helped other criminals target innocent people, companies and public bodies by infecting their computer systems and stealing sensitive data. Victims lost billions of pounds paying ransoms and recovering their systems after attacks.

Gavin was the UK lead for Operation Cronos – an international operation in which specialist NCA officers infiltrated and seized control of LockBit’s own systems in 2024, stopping the group from carrying out further attacks and subsequently ruining their reputation in the criminal underworld. In a well-publicised and innovative move, the NCA used LockBit’s own dark web site to notify users that it had been taken over by law enforcement and to publicly name LockBit’s leader. Russian national Dmitry Khoroshev, who had been so confident in his anonymity that he offered a $10m reward to anyone who could reveal his identity, was subsequently sanctioned by the UK, US and Australia.

Kay Taylor CBE, 50 – Director of Legal Services

NCA Director of Legal Services Kay is being recognised for being “an exceptional leader who enables and inspires officers to protect the public”.Kay’s tenacity and expertise have helped investigators secure the conviction of countless serious and organised criminals. Among the high-profile investigations she has supported are Operation Venetic – the UK response to the international take down of EncroChat, an encrypted platform used by thousands of offenders to commit and plan some of the most serious types of crime, from drug and firearms supply to murder. Kay also supported Operation Stovewood – the NCA’s extensive, long-running investigation into non-familial child sexual abuse in Rotherham, which has to date secured the conviction of 49 offenders.Kay’s honour also recognises her work championing women and improving their representation within the NCA through a range of initiatives, including a female-focused mentoring scheme.

Fiona Nicolson MBE, 61 – former team manager, National Economic Crime Centre

Fiona is honoured for being “a trailblazer in driving improvements across law enforcement” which have increased seizures of criminal assets and ensured the swift return of money to victims of fraud.

While working for the NCA, Fiona developed a new triage process for suspicious activity reporting – the mechanism through which the private sector alerts law enforcement to suspected money laundering. Her process focused efforts on denying the highest-harm criminals access to their assets and subsequently helped law enforcement seize assets worth hundreds of millions. 

Fiona also created a streamlined method and new national guidance for returning defrauded money to vulnerable victims, which directly resulted in around £7m being returned to 40,000 victims of fraud between 2021 and 2024.

Five more serving and former NCA officers, who are not being identified due to the nature of their work, also received MBEs for their services to law enforcement.

NCA Director General Graeme Biggar said: “These honours are well deserved by the officers, who have truly gone above and beyond to support victims and protect the public from the most serious and harmful crime.

“These officers represent the very best qualities of all officers working so hard across the National Crime Agency, and I am immensely proud of all that they have achieved.”

29 December 2025