OSCE delivers training course on transnational organized crime facilitated by cyberspace in Tirana

Assessing digital intelligence and implementing findings obtained for planning operative measures in the fight against transnational organized crime facilitated by the Internet was the focus of the OSCE-hosted one-week training course, which took place from 16 to 20 April in Tirana. 

Some 20 members of various criminal justice institutions, including prosecutors, judges and crime investigators, from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia attended the course. It was organized by the OSCE Secretariat’s Transnational Threats Department, with the support of the OSCE Presence in Albania and the Albanian Security Academy.

The course was delivered by the OSCE Secretariat’s staff together with external experts from the Ministry of Justice of the German Federal State of Hesse and the Austrian Institute of Technology. A part of the event was also supported by the EUROPOL’s Cybercrime Centre.

The course consisted of a four-day simulation exercise involving a fictitious cybercrime case scenario and one-day of practical instructions on virtual currencies. It demonstrated to participants the various challenges posed by modern information technologies in investigating and prosecuting complex criminal cases as well as the advantages of regional co-operation and collaboration in the fight against transnational organized crime facilitated by cyberspace. 

Participants also had the opportunity to enhance their skills in developing, planning and implementing specific investigation tactics and strategies in the fight against this type of crime.

The training is part of a larger OSCE regional capacity building project and was the last in a series of six regional training activities addressing various thematic aspects of combating cybercrime and cyber-enabled crime, taking place from January until the end of April this year. 

National trainers, who were appointed by beneficiary countries for this project and passed all six regional training courses, will now start preparing the first round of local training activities due to being launched in early autumn.

The project is a collaborative endeavour of the OSCE Secretariat’s Transnational Threats Department, the OSCE field operations in South-Eastern Europe, and their respective host authorities. The project’s implementation is steered by a co-ordination board which selects and nominates participants for training activities and will monitor and evaluate local training activities run by the beneficiaries themselves in the second part of the project.