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The commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has said that the number of officers specialising in cybercrime needs to be boosted.

It would be a mistake to redeploy policemen specialising in cybercrime to beat duties because organised criminals are increasingly targeting the web, claims Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson.

In an article in the Sunday Telegraph, Sir Paul Stephenson wrote that uniformed officers on patrol were not enough to keep the country safe.

"Some commentators argue that we should concentrate on uniformed policing and draw back from specialised work that could be done by others," Stephenson said.

"Leave cybercrime to the banks and retailers to sort out, the argument runs. It's a fundamentally misguided argument. If the debate about police cutbacks gets bogged down in arguments about 'uniforms before specialists' we will not serve the public well," he continued.

Currently there are 385 officers dealing with cybercrime, though only 60 deal with financially motivated crimes, with the rest dedicated to investigating child abuse and people-trafficking rings.

But Stephenson said that of every £1 spent fighting financial crimes online, £21 is saved in terms of thefts prevented. The Met's e-Crime unit cost £2.75m to run over the last year.

The comments followed the arrest of 19 people suspected of involvement in the Zeus banking Trojan in the UK last week.