How Advanced Crime Analytics Tools Are Now Indispensable in the Fight Against Cross-Border Crime

Tunnel used to smuggle weapons found near Egyptian border by Israeli forces (Israel Defense Forces under CC BY 2.0)

Without the right protection in place, borders can be exploited by criminals as a weak spot.

The sheer quantity of people and goods passing through borders across the world every minute is almost unfathomable – and this is only set to increase.  Not only are we seeing large and increasing volumes of cargo and traffic but also increasingly sophisticated and well-organised cross-border criminal organisations using new techniques to profit from criminal activity.

Of course, smuggling is not a new threat. From 13^th century wool smuggling to the ‘black receipts’ that became commonplace in the 15^th century, for hundreds of years criminals have tried to take advantage of weak points at the border for financial gain.

However, today the threat has changed. These criminals are now equipped with different weapons from their forebears: digital technology.

Mobility and anonymity

Technology is playing an increasingly important role in connecting and facilitating criminal networks that engage in trafficking of humans, narcotics, weapons, money and other contraband.

From smartphones to more complicated devices and applications, these smugglers are concealing their identities and using technology to plan, coordinate, and perpetrate their activities with increased mobility and anonymity.

And technology is not only being used as a communications tool to facilitate criminal activity. Malicious cyber attacks are being targeted at border authorities to infiltrate the system, gain intelligence and manipulate data.

Take the Belgian port of Antwerp in 2013, where drug traffickers worked with trained hackers to access IT systems controlling the movement and location of containers. Armed with this data, drug dealers managed to conceal heroin and cocaine inside legitimate shipping cargoes for a period of over two years.

This example is indicative of the evolution of border crime which is rarely amateur or opportunistic but instead carried out by skilled technology experts. To counter this movement, police and border authorities have no choice but to adapt the way they operate, taking a technology-oriented approach.

This is where analytics comes in.

Advanced crime analytics tools can quickly process and analyse huge amounts of information held on devices such as mobile phones, laptops and PCs, which are often seized at the border, along with additional information such as travel or financial records to help investigators rapidly detect suspicious activities and surface unusual relationships.

The ability to manage such data quickly and efficiently often while a suspect is being held can be crucial to the success of an investigation.

Using technology this is exactly what leading narcotics agency, Office of Narcotic Control Board (ONCB), is aiming to do to assist the Royal Thai Government in its work to protect its citizens from transnational crime groups involved in drug trafficking. Narcotic trafficking is a growing problem for ASEAN countries, particularly the influx of drugs from the golden triangle which Thailand borders.

Using advanced crime analytics, it will be easier for authorities to use data to identify and prosecute suspects and protect the community from organised, transnational criminal groups, by suppressing drug smuggling activities along its borders.

As discussed above, advanced crime analytics tools can also integrate data from many sources including criminal watch lists, bank and financial transactions, travel and transaction records, and cargo and manifest records to build an even more comprehensive picture.

Investigators are able to reveal events and relationships that would have otherwise gone unnoticed, allowing them to find, monitor, track, assess and disrupt trafficking networks.

Cross-border collaboration

The hunt for organised criminal gangs is challenging due to siloes of information – particularly if the criminals are moving fast across numerous geographical areas. Again, this is where advanced crime analytics comes into its own by enhancing inter-agency information exchange and collaboration.

Members of criminal networks are often known by multiple government and enforcement agencies but without the ability to share that data, vital information can fall through the cracks. With the right tools and supporting laws in place, data can be shared and used by different agencies.

Using advanced crime analytics software, agencies can significantly reduce manual data checking, dramatically increase their ability to share critical information, collaborate on workflow-dependent tasks and provide frontline officers with actionable intelligence to directly target offenders.

It is only by playing these tech-savvy criminals at their own game can border protection agencies can keep pace with international criminal networks and smugglers that continue to become smarter and more tech-savvy.

With the right advanced crime analytics tool, agencies can dramatically increase their ability to identify individuals and organizations of interest, share critical information, collaborate on workflow-dependent asks, and strengthen the fight against border crime.

Free Download: The Video Surveillance Report 2023

Discover the latest developments in the rapidly-evolving video surveillance sector by downloading the 2023 Video Surveillance Report. Over 500 responses to our survey, which come from integrators to consultants and heads of security, inform our analysis of the latest trends including AI, the state of the video surveillance market, uptake of the cloud, and the wider economic and geopolitical events impacting the sector!

Download for FREE to discover top industry insight around the latest innovations in video surveillance systems.

Download The Video Surveillance Report