Introducing the Centre for State Threats

Dear friend,

The purpose of this note is to inform you that the Centre for State Threats has been launched by Dr. Martin Gallagher and Martin Purbrick (founder of the Asian Crime Century). You can find the Centre on Substack here:

The Centre is an independent publishing platform analysing the convergence of hostile state activity, terrorism and organised crime, and what these mean for the United Kingdom and its allies. We are publishing on Substack to keep the work free at the point of use for the readers who follow this material most closely, such as practitioners in government, regulation, financial services, and the press.

The Centre analyses how state threats, including those linked to China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, as well as terrorist groups, leverage criminal networks, illicit financial systems, and grey-zone tactics to project influence, evade regulation, and undermine security.

By way of introduction, the founders are as follows:

Dr Martin Gallagher is a former Superintendent with Police Scotland who completed more than 28 years of distinguished policing service in 2022, holding senior command positions in both uniform and detective roles, including counter terrorism. Since leaving policing, Martin has been providing expertise in investigation, security, organised crime, terrorism, leadership, crisis management, technology transformation, journalism, research, and academia. Martin holds a PhD and has authored more than 70 publications, with his work featured by the BBC, The Sunday Times, and Jane’s Intelligence Review.

Martin Purbrick is a security, intelligence, and organised crime specialist with more than three decades of experience across law enforcement, corporate security, integrity, and geopolitical risk. A former Detective Inspector with the Royal Hong Kong Police, he has held senior leadership roles including Asia Investigations Manager for Intel Corporation, Director of Security and Integrity for Hong Kong Jockey Club, and Director of Security and Integrity for McKinsey & Company. He is the founder of the Asian Crime Century Substack and is a regular commentator and published author on Asian organised crime, illicit markets and geopolitical security issues.

Why now, and why us. The founders bring complementary backgrounds across law enforcement, intelligence and the financial-crime industry. We have both spent much of our careers seeing the intersection where hostile state activity meets terrorism and organised crime, and on the gap between those two. The Centre is our attempt to close that gap in public.

From late July, subscribers will receive:

• A weekly bulletin with explanations from the founders of developments across the range of state threats.

• In-depth reports on a single theme, by a named author and fully sourced. These will be diverse, covering hostile state activity, terrorism and organised crime but explaining any nexus.

• Online and in-person events with keynote speakers and the founders. More on that in due course.

If this is of interest, please:

• Subscribe at centreforstatethreats.substack.com

• Forward this note to one or two people whose attention this should have

• Reply with topics, sources or events you think we should be covering

The inaugural founders’ essay will be published on Substack next week. We hope you will join us, as readers and as critics, to follow the Centre for State Threats.

With thanks,

Martin Gallagher, Martin Purbrick

Co-founders: Centre for State Threats