Europol revealed officers “game” for tracing crypto transactions

Europol, the European Union Agency for law enforcement cooperation, announced that it is developing a game, the “cryptocurrency-tracing game,” to help law enforcers, such as investigators and officers, to learn how to trace illegal cryptocurrency transactions.

Europol revealed its news at the sixth Cryptocurrency Conference, which ran from 12-14 June at Europol headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands. The game was developed in partnership with CENTRIC (Centre of Excellence in Terrorism, Resilience, Intelligence, and Organized Crime Research). It is designed to give law enforcement officers the necessary training for tracing cryptocurrencies and treating related cases as part of criminal investigations. According to their 14 June press release:

“The game, planned to be launched in October at the seventh Europol-INTERPOL Cybercrime Conference, will be the first law enforcement training opportunity on cryptocurrency and investigation using gamification. It will allow law enforcers to get hands-on training and advice on tracing cryptocurrencies in a criminal investigation.”

With the help of gamification to help create a training opportunity for officers, cryptocurrency crime fighters are about to have some fun fighting crime. The fun part aside, the cryptocurrency-tracing game is a clear indication of how dedicated and serious the law enforcement agencies are tackling cryptocurrency related crime.

During the conference, which hosted more than 300 cryptocurrency experts from both law enforcement and the private sector, members shared different practices when undertaking investigations involving cryptocurrency-related crimes.

Earlier in the year, Hard Fork reported that a partnership between law enforcement agencies across Europe shut down the cryptocurrency mixing service for the likes of Bestmixer, Wall Street Market, and the popular dark web marketplace. For example, Bestmixer.io, one of the top three cryptocurrency mixing services, was believed to having turned over more than $200 million since it started operations in May 2018.

This idea is first of its kind for Europol, with the concept of using a gamified training platform to educate law enforcers on tracing cryptocurrency transactions; however, it is not new to Interpol as it implemented a similar idea in 2015.