OLAF trains digital forensics and analysts to fight fraud

The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) completed today its 23^rd digital forensics and analysts training.

The two-week programme trained mainly staff from national law enforcement agencies and covered the area of digital forensics, computer crime and analysis in the anti-fraud domain. Training courses delivered – open source intelligence, Linux and mobile forensics – will allow trainees to better cope with forensic and analysis work in topics such as money fraud analysis, financial investigations, cryptocurrencies transactions, online data exchange and cooperation with OLAF.

National law enforcement officers are at the forefront of the fight against fraud affecting the EU budget, and OLAF has observed a drastic rise in fraud carried out digitally over the last few years – also due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which created new opportunities for digital fraudsters. Intelligence gathering, analysing and sharing data have become more important than ever.

A total 120 participants were trained from the EU Member States as well as third countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Jordan, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Norway, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine. The training was financed by the Union Anti-Fraud Programme, a line of EU funding that is managed by OLAF to support national authorities in their fight against fraud.

The training has been gathering specialists from the forensics and analysis community for many years and has become a highly valued annual event, strengthening the fight against fraud worldwide.