In today’s ever-changing world, where capacity building support is more important than ever, it is crucial that criminal justice authorities and in particular law enforcement can effectively fulfil their roles, by continuously gaining and consolidating their knowledge through reliable training on cybercrime and electronic evidence.
To support this goal, the Council of Europe through its Cybercrime Programme Office and the European Cybercrime Training and Education Group (ECTEG) joined forces and delivered to law enforcement officials from 24 countries the ECTEG Cryptocurrency and Dark Web Investigations Online Course (eCDWI).
Organised in the framework of iPROCEEDS-2 Project, eCDWI was aimed at teaching law enforcement investigators not only how blockchain works, what the cryptocurrency clustering and attribution methods are, how to use GraphSense and other free online tools in investigations, but also to understand the principles and recognise the use of money laundering techniques using cryptocurrencies, the obfuscation of traces using privacy-oriented communication applications. Moreover, the course enabled the participants to understand the elements of the criminal business model in the Dark Web, by simulating through a series of exercises the search and discovery of darknet markets, forums and other related sites while targeting and potentially identifying relevant actors.
The course was designed to be delivered in a blended format, via ECTEG’s training platform, offering a combination of self-paced learning material, complemented by theoretical material with illustrations, screencasts, examples and live sessions with instructors. All activities were monitored and co-ordinated by two experts, while some of the topics covered were cryptocurrency seizing, blockchain analysis, obfuscation techniques, Dark Web criminal landscape.
The course officially started on 21 of February and lasted until 25 of March 2022. Four webinars have been organised in between, encouraging the participants to engage with the experts for benefiting from their experience. At the same time, the course has been considered a good networking opportunity for creating a small cryptocurrency and dark web investigations iterate community.
iPROCEEDS-2 project webpage
ECTEG website