Second Strategic Meeting on Payment Card Fraud

On 22-23 March 2016 Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) and ASEANAPOL, with the cooperation of INTERPOL and the support of the Romanian National Police and the Royal Malaysian Police, organised the Second Strategic Meeting on Payment Card Fraud (PCF) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

This two-day meeting brought together 25 law enforcement officers from EU Member States (Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Romania and the UK) with their counterparts from the ASEANAPOL community (including Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) to discuss cooperation in preventing and combating this type of crime. 
The private sector was represented by the European ATM Security Team (EAST) which provided the law enforcement community with a comprehensive overview of the ATM fraud and its migration to Asia.

The aim of this event was to increase awareness among experts about all types of non-cash means of payment, including card skimming, ATM malware, internet fraud and eCommerce fraud. New and unreported modus operandi recently detected by different investigative units were shared between experts and cases involving European criminals active in Asia were discussed,  resulting in the elaboration of operational plans for coordinated actions in a close future.

The Head of EC3, Steven Wilson, said: “Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre has a long history of taking proactive steps assisting law enforcement agencies (LEAs) in the European Union (EU) to combat payment card fraud (PCF). A successful first Strategic Meeting in this crime field was held in Singapore in November 2015, initiating investigations both in the EU and Asia and encouraging the organisation of this second session with the aim to establish a cross-regional network to assist international investigations. Europol recognises the severity of the far reaching threats presented on a global scale by PCF and will continue to assist LEAs in their fights against it.”

EUROPOL is actively developing international cooperation on combating payment fraud, which is one of the EU priorities (Cybercrime - Payment Fraud - led by the Romanian Police) within the EU Policy Cycle 2014/2017 for organised crime and serious international crime as endorsed by the EU Council.