EAST and ASEANAPOL formalise collaboration
EAST and ASEANAPOL have formalised collaboration. This was agreed by the 37th ASEANAPOL Conference held in Singapore on 11-15 September 2017 and by the 43rd EAST Meeting held in Edinburgh on 4th October 2017. This collaboration is another step forward in addressing the consequences of the spread of the activities of organised criminal groups across regions and globally.
ASEANAPOL is the National Police organisation for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Working with Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) EAST has attended four Strategic Meetings on Payment Card Fraud that were held in the ASEAN region. At the most recent meeting in July 2017, the increasing threat posed by fraudulent payment card activities by organised crime groups led to the creation of the Investigative Network of Law Enforcement specialists from the European Union and ASEAN countries (EURASEAN). This initiative, led by Europol, is supported by both ASEANAPOL and INTERPOL, with the assistance of EAST representing the private sector.
In June of this year ASEANAPOL gave a presentation at the 3rd EAST FCS Forum in the Hague. Mr Ferdinand Bartolome, Director for Police Services, ASEANAPOL Secretariat, gave a presentation which covered ASEANAPOL and its initiatives in the pursuit of payment card fraud, initiatives undertaken with EUROPOL and trends and counter-measures in ATM fraud. Mr Bartolome is pictured left, with EAST Executive Director Lachlan Gunn, at the event.
In a European Payment Terminal Crime Report, published today, EAST shows that out of total reported losses of €118 million, suffered by European card issuers due to payment card skimming, and reported for the period January to June 2017, €96 million were international skimming losses. Such losses are committed outside national borders by criminals using stolen card details. The majority of these losses were seen in the USA and the Asia-Pacific region. The above-mentioned EURASEAN initiative, and the EAST-ASEANAPOL collaboration, are significant steps forward in the efforts to counter the spread of such losses.
