Europol coordinates referral action day to combat manuals and tutorials on improvised explosive devices including CBRN

On 27 and 28 November 2019, the European Union Internet Referral Unit (EU IRU) at Europol organised its 17th Joint Referral Action Day with specialised units from EU Member States, non-EU countries ¹ and other Europol specialised units. 

This joint action was coordinated from Europol’s headquarters in The Hague and mainly targeted manuals and tutorials explaining how to build improvised explosive devices (IED) and use chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) agents in the context or terrorism.

During the referral action days, the parties involved reviewed the referral process, from the detection of terrorist content to its flagging to online service providers (OSPs). The focus of this initiative included the detection and referral of terrorist content in a number of platforms. A total amount of 1733 items were referred to the involved OSPs with a request to be reviewed against their terms of service.

The joint operation included also dark web investigations focusing on the trade of CBRN explosive agents in dark web markets. In addition, investigators from the participating countries conducted investigations regarding suspicious transactions of chemical precursors in online retailers.

Europol promotes cooperative relations to combat terrorist content online. Similar joint actions will continue to be organised frequently.

¹Belgium, Czechia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Spain (Civil Guard and National Police), United Kingdom (Metropolitan Police) and the USA (FBI).