OSCE organizes training course on Dark Web and virtual currencies in Central Asia

A five-day OSCE online training course on the Dark Web and virtual currencies for criminal justice practitioners from the five Central Asian OSCE participating States concluded on 29 October 2021. The course provided practitioners with basic theoretical knowledge and practical skills in the investigation of crimes facilitated by the use of the Dark Web and virtual currencies.

The course was based on training materials developed by the European Cybercrime Training and Education Group (ECTEG) and covered topics such as cryptocurrency seizing, Blockchain analysis, obfuscation techniques, anonymous communication services, and searching the Dark Web. It also included a session on human rights compliance in the investigation and prosecution of cybercrime cases, tailored to the course topics.

As part of the practical exercises, the participants used GraphSense, an open-source tool for analyzing major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Zcash and Ethereum. This tool was developed by the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) and is currently supported by the Austrian Security Research Programme’s (KIRAS) KRYPTOMONITOR project, which is led by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG). It has been used in several scientific studies to evaluate cryptocurrency data.

The training course was delivered as part of the OSCE project, Capacity-Building on Combating Cybercrime in Central Asia, in close co-operation with OSCE field operations in the region. The aim of the project is to build sustainable national training capacities for police officers and prosecutors on combating cybercrime.

The project will also deliver a second train-the-trainer course as well as thematic training courses on open-source intelligence gathering with a focus on countering terrorism and digital forensics.