Nowadays most cybercrime reported and investigated by criminal justice authorities is related to different types of online frauds and other offences aimed at obtaining illegal financial benefit. Misuse of new technology products and services has grown rapidly and created serious challenges for countries authorities in attributing the high-tech crimes and in investigating subsequent criminal activities like online money laundering and terrorism financing.
Lack of adequate training can be a major obstacle in having judges and prosecutors responding to the threat of cybercrime, seizing the online crime proceeds and handling the electronic evidence in an effective and efficient way. Hand in hand with these measures is the need to equip key actors in the criminal justice system with the skills and the knowledge to apply them. They need to understand the nature and probational implications of cybercrime cases, admissibility issues for electronic evidence in the trial process as well as the presentation of electronic evidence in court.
The Council of Europe approach to protect societies worldwide in the cyberspace is based on the development and implementation of the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, through a suitable programme of capacity building for criminal justice authorities. Sustainable Judicial Training programmes on cybercrime, electronic evidence and online crime proceeds are the only effective manner of ensuring that judges and prosecutors have sufficient knowledge to fulfil their roles effectively.
Given this, from 27 – 29 September, in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the iPROCEEDS-2 project organised for Bosnian magistrates a Specialised Advanced Judicial Training on Cybercrime and Electronic Evidence aiming at enabling magistrates to further develop their critical thinking skills, have a superior understanding of the legal provisions and rules that may apply to cybercrime investigations and digital evidence.
The advanced knowledge and techniques acquired by magistrates will lead to a faster resolution of their cases and will make their legal proposals more informed and well argued. The Advanced Judicial training on cybercrime and electronic evidence will also provide the magistrates with practical knowledge of the legal steps and measures to be taken in court, in the prosecution of a cybercrime case, in particular those relating to the presentation of evidence obtained during the investigation phase and the deliberation on its legality and probative value.
Back-to-back with the training, on 30 September 2022, a workshop on investigating/prosecuting online frauds was organised for the same audience. The workshop aimed at increasing the participants knowledge on different trends and typologies of online frauds, the main steps and measures to be taken during the investigation, the type of information that can be obtained from the financial institutions and internet service providers and the judicial international cooperation tools and channels, to rapidly obtain evidence and also to seize and confiscate online crime proceeds.
iPROCEEDS-2 project webpage
Octopus Platform webpage