Europol in a sentence

Criminals are already using ChatGPT to commit crimes, Europol said in a Monday report that details how AI language models can fuel fraud, cybercrime, and terrorism.

Rotterdam police have been involved in a cross-border campaign to break up what Europol describes as a “highly violent criminal cell from the Western Balkans” which was involved in the “large-scale trafficking of drugs and firearms across Europe”.

The Europol appeal said Ege "is believed to travel extensively with the use of false documentation and may have changed his appearance".

The operation was carried out in conjunction with Europol, and targeted a criminal organisation called Ragnar Locker, which specialises in extorting firms by taking control of their computer systems and data.

Until now, the IRS only had one cyber investigator abroad, in The Hague, Netherlands, mostly working along Europol since 2021.

According to Europol, the group has now comprised LockBit’s primary platform and critical infrastructure,” which includes the takedown of 34 servers spanning Europe, the US, and Australia.

Europol is completing an assessment of criminal networks posing the most serious threat to the EU.

Leading up to the raids, three suspects had been arrested in Estonia, France and Lithuania, with another two suspects under judicial supervision in France, said Europol.

One Europol investigation uncovered an organised crime gang producing fake saffron – the valuable spice dubbed 'red gold', made from the thread-like stigmas of the plant – in Spain, and exporting it worldwide in quantities worth £8.5 million.

The international operation was coordinated by the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) and the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust), and targeted what are known as Terrorist Operated Websites (TOW).

A suspect in the Netherlands collected those payments via an underground banking system, Europol said.

Europol experts had previously testified that they extracted around four terabytes worth of data from a range of devices seized as part of the murder probe into Fenech, who is pleading not guilty to murder charges.

Europol said several incidents had also “raised the question of the mental state of the perpetrators”.

He said the group believes they are being hunted by the U.S. Secret Service, Europol and infosec companies on a daily basis, with CIA agents actively trying to infiltrate the group’s operations by posing as an affiliate applicant.

That led to an opportunity to race through the streets of Monte Carlo at the Formula One Grand Prix Weekend three years ago, and eventually to his current gig with Inter Europol Competition.

The Daphne Caruana Galizia foundation also called for a Europol joint investigation team.

Totaro says he was assigned the task by the head of Europol’s digital forensics lab.

Europol says that free tools provided as part of its three-year-old “No More Ransom” project prevented ransomware gangs from making at least $108M in profits — No More Ransom project is celebrating its three-year birthday today.

For 173 of these series, Europol stated the country of production has likely been pinpointed.

Gillespie said the tool will also be fed into Europol’s No More Ransom Project so that future victims will be notified that a decryption tool is available.