Since November of the last year, the State Police has commenced significant education of the employees and it will continue also this year, attracting the best experts of the industry from the whole world and providing training on the events of special importance in the field of economic crimes, being committed in the digital environment. As of today, 7 February, the training course "eCDWI" is started on the crypto currency and the closed Internet platform - Dark Web. These courses are intended for all employees of the law enforcement authorities, who face with investigation of all kind of criminal phenomenons on a daily basis, facilitated by the use of crypto currency and Dark Web. The training is held remotely and all employees of the State Police across the whole Latvia participate in it.
The courses are organized by the State Police in cooperation with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), attracting the lecturers from the European Cybercrime Training and Education Group (ECTEG) within the framework of the European Economic area grant 2014-2021 programme “International Police Cooperation and Combating Crime” project No.EEZ/VP/2020/1 “Support to the State Police for increasing effectiveness and quality of economic crime investigation in Latvia”.
The duration of the training course "eCDWI" will be 2 weeks and 21 experts of the area will participate therein. The course is divided into three modules - the first, introductory model will explain the most important concepts on the use of Internet and networking, as well as will discuss the aspect of anonymity, which is being applied both in the Dark Web as well as transactions of crypto currency. In the crypto currency module the employees will be introduced with different methods of attraction of crypto currency and people, which are being used when committing criminal activities. The Dark Web module will describe the most topical functions and services of Tor network, in order the participants of the course would have an idea on the current Dark Web environment. Cyber crimes have international and dynamic nature, therefore, also foreign experts are among the lecturers, who will share with successful practices in combatting of cyber crimes.
Ruslans Grigs, the head of the State Police Central Criminal Police Department Economic Crime Combatting Department 3rd Unit emphasizes that “Criminals constantly improve their methods and approaches how to defraud financial and property funds from people, therefore, the State Police intensively pays attention to education of employees on cyber crimes. Different trainings and workshops are a great opportunity for employees to improve the knowledge in IT criminalistics and IT crimes."
In turn, the representative of EDSO indicates that "This course is developed fot those employees of the law enforcement authorities, who investigate criminal activities, including economic and financial crimes, where criminals use crypto currency and Dark Web in order to profit from attacks ofransom programs, money laundering and countless other activities of cyber crime. The developers and lecturers of the training course come from the Cyber Safety Excellence Centers of Universities and specialized operational police units, fighting against cyber crime in Europe".
While, last year from 1 to 14 November the "eFirst" training course took a place on the electronic evidence, cyber crimes and constituent elements of such crimes. 14 days were provided for acquirers of this course for acquisition of the course at the time and place convenient for them. Materials of the "eFirst" course covered such topics are devices and technologies, internet services, cyber safety, electronic evidence, FiRST tool and other topics. Materials were available from the beginning of the course that enabled the participants to select how to learn the content. In order to valuably assess their knowledge, the course included several quizzes.
During the whole next year, within the framework of the project No.EEZ/VP/2020/1 “Support to the State Police for increasing effectiveness and quality of economic crime investigation in Latvia” the State Police will also organize educational workshops and conferences for the law enforcement authorities, discussing very topical subjects, such as defraud of funds, data protection and illegal movement of goods.
The trainings are implemented within the framework of the European Economic area grant 2014-2021 programme “International Police Cooperation and Combating Crime” project No.EEZ/VP/2020/1 “Support to the State Police for increasing effectiveness and quality of economic crime investigation in Latvia””.