OSCE delivers webinar on the Dark Web criminal landscape for police cadets in Uzbekistan

On 24 October, the OSCE’s Transnational Threats Department and the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Uzbekistan organized a webinar on the Dark Web criminal landscape for the Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan in Tashkent.

The OSCE briefed around eighty cadets and lecturers from the Academy about different types of crimes that are facilitated through the Dark Web. They were also briefed about the functioning of the Tor network, which is used to access the Dark Web. Speakers discussed practical examples of investigating crimes facilitated by the Dark Web and tools available to law enforcement to combat them.

“While many people use the Dark Web and the Tor network to protect their privacy and avoid censorship, the anonymity that this technology offers is unfortunately also often misused by malicious actors for illicit purposes. Tackling crime on the Dark Web requires innovative technical and operational approaches from law enforcement,” underlined Martha Stickings, Cybercrime Adviser and Deputy Head of the Strategic Police Matters Unit at the OSCE Transnational Threats Department.

Speakers included an expert from the OSCE Transnational Threats Department, a former cybercrime specialist from the German police, and the managing director of the company CFLW Cyber Strategies.

This is the third such webinar in 2023 and marks a continuation of the 2022 series on raising awareness about trends in contemporary policing. The first webinar took place in June and focused on threats posed by malware. The second webinar took place in September and was dedicated to online payment fraud. One more event is planned for later this year that will focus on cryptocurrency-related crimes.

The webinars complement the national and regional training activities conducted by the OSCE in Uzbekistan under the extra-budgetary project “Capacity building on combating cybercrime in Central Asia”.