Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the “DNA“ of organised crime in the EU, warned Europol on Tuesday 18 March in a new report entitled ‘EU Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment (EU-SOCTA)’.
Crime is increasingly “destabilising (...) [illustrated by] the laundering or reinvestment of illicit proceeds, corruption, violence and the criminal exploitation of young perpetrators, but also increasingly by connections with state actors, sometimes hybrid threats”, with criminal networks acting as intermediaries, for example in acts of sabotage.
Presented in The Hague by Director of Europol Catherine De Bolle, European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner and the Polish presidency of the EU Council, the report identifies three defining characteristics of today’s serious and organised crime landscape, including the fact that AI and emerging technologies are accelerating crime. “The very qualities that make AI revolutionary - accessibility, versatility and sophistication - have made it an attractive tool for criminals. [These technologies] automate [and] extend criminal operations, making them more scalable and (...) harder to detect”, says the report.
For Catherine De Bolle, the difficulty also lies in detecting the authors of certain content, as police forces may no longer know whether it is generated by humans or AI, making prosecution more complex.
Artificial intelligence and other new technologies such as blockchain and quantum computing will accelerate serious and organised crime. They are a catalyst for crime and increase the effectiveness of criminal operations by amplifying their speed, scope and sophistication.
“The emergence of fully autonomous AI could pave the way for entirely AI-controlled criminal networks, marking a new era in organised crime”, Europol also writes.
Secondly, crime is increasingly taking place online. “Digital infrastructures drive criminal operations, enabling illicit activities to scale up and adapt at unprecedented speed”. From cyber fraud and ‘ransomware’ to drug trafficking and money laundering, the Internet has “become the primary theatre for organised crime”, explained Catherine De Bolle.
In particular, the agency’s director renewed her call for the creation of new legal bases to give law enforcement agencies better access to data.
The report highlights seven areas where networks are “becoming more sophisticated and dangerous”: cyber attacks, mainly ‘ransomware’, are increasingly targeting critical infrastructure, governments, businesses and individuals; online fraud, increasingly fuelled by AI-based social engineering and access to vast amounts of data; online child sexual abuse material with generative AI producing child pornography; migrant smuggling, with networks charging exorbitant fees and exploiting geopolitical crises; drug trafficking; firearms trafficking; waste-related crime and its serious effects on the environment.
Link to the report: https://aeur.eu/f/fzn (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)