OSCE Enlightens Uzbekistan Police on Crypto And Dark Web

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) held a five-day training course to teach Uzbekistan’s law enforcement entities including the police and prosecutors about cryptocurrencies and Dark Web investigations. This training was held in Tashkent between October 17th and October 21st.

In attendance were officials from the General Prosecutor’s Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the State Security Service of Uzbekistan.

The OSCE training is part of a long-term goal aimed at educating and sensitizing Central Asian law enforcement representatives on the advancing technologies in which criminals can likely engage especially for that strategic region to conduct global drug trade.

The modules of the training treated core concepts and trends that are worthy of significance in internetworking, anonymity and encryption, cryptocurrencies, obfuscation tactics, the Dark Web, and the Tor networks. Also included were approaches and methods for cryptocurrency seizing, blockchain analysis, and searching on the Dark Web.

Specifically, the training was organized by the OSCE Transnational Threats Department in close partnership with the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Uzbekistan and the Academy of the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Noteworthy, the modules and content of the course were designed by European Cybercrime Training and Education Group (ECTEG).

Uzbekistan Joins to Combat Cybercrime

Shortly before this time, the Deputy General Prosecutor of Uzbekistan, Erkin Yuldashev, collaborated with the Acting OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Uzbekistan Hans-Ulrich Ihm to launch a new computer classroom which was donated by the OSCE to the General Prosecutor’s Academy. 

Invariably, this is the first national training course in Uzbekistan that was rolled out in the second phase of the extra-budgetary “Capacity Building on Combating Cybercrime in Central Asia” project which is funded by the United States of America, Germany, and the Republic of Korea. National training activities will continue across the region throughout 2022 and 2023.

The government of Uzbekistan has been wary of unregulated and unlicensed cryptocurrency exchanges and their activities. In 2021, Uzbeki’s authorities issued a warning to its citizens to remain watchful of unlicensed crypto exchanges. Now, more than a year after, leading digital assets service provider Binance has shut Uzbekistan users out of its platform.