Under the Croatian Chairmanship of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers, the Cybercrime Programme Office of the Council of Europe and Regional Centre for judicial training on Cybercrime of the Judicial Academy of Croatia organised the Regional Forum on Online Fraud on 4-5 October 2018 in Zagreb, Croatia.

Criminal justice authorities from the South-eastern Europe, representatives of the private sector, Council of Europe, Europol, FBI, Ministry of Justice of Estonia, FIU-Luxembourg, and City of London Police shared and discussed current threats, trends, as well countermeasures and various initiatives in the field of combatting online fraud, relevant international standards and frameworks and their effective application in investigation and prosecution of online fraud and online crime proceeds, as well as the need to enhance public-private cooperation and information sharing at national and international levels.

In the course of the conference is has been highlighted that online fraud remains a highly lucrative business that generate vast amounts of crime proceeds. It is difficult to estimate the value of the cybercrime economy, however various forms of online crimes result in the loss of billions for both businesses and ordinary citizens. Generating profit is the key driving force and motivation of the increasing number of online extortions, e-commerce fraud, account takeovers, credit card fraud, payment frauds, Business Email Compromise/CEO fraud, etc. Cybercriminals make use of technology for their benefit, they adopt new digital solutions such as cryptocurrencies to add an additional layer of anonymity to their illegal conduct. Online criminal markets on the Dark Web, where fraud is a top commodity and where illegal activities continue to thrive and generate considerable profits for the cybercriminals, represent a challenge for investigators.

More efficient investigations and prosecution of online fraud and online proceeds depend on a range of factors:

• Efficient legal framework – the Budapest Convention remains the most relevant global international instrument on cybercrime and electronic evidence. The constant change of modus operandi of online crime offences related to fraud requires new standards – the new initiative on the EU Directive on combating fraud and counterfeit of non-cash means of payment aims at expanding the scope of online offences, harmonising their definitions, improving criminal justice cooperation, as well prevention and awareness-raising to reduce the risk of becoming a victim of fraud. Challenges related to the cross-border nature of the cybercrime and jurisdiction in cyberspace will be tackled by the 2nd Additional Protocol to the Budapest Convention – currently being prepared by the Cybercrime Convention Committee and the EU e-evidence proposal, which are expected to facilitate the work of the criminal justice authorities in accessing electronic evidence in investigations.
• At the same time, examples of good practices such as the operation of Action Fraud in the UK or the valuable work undertaken by the National Cyber-Forensics Training Alliance (NCFTA) in the US are demonstrating that successful investigation of online fraud is possible through effective reporting, enhanced international and public-private cooperation.

• Agenda
• iPROCEEDS project website