From November 12th to 14th, in the United States, prosecutors from Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago and Dominica will participate in a training workshop on the technical and legal aspects of cybercrime, including the importance of international cooperation for effective prosecution of these offenses.

In the Workshop, specialists from the U.S. Department of Justice and the OAS will train prosecutors in:

• Methods used by criminals to attack computers
• Basic concepts about the Internet
• Available international cooperation tools
• Evidence held by service providers
• Mobile phone exploitation
• Virtual currencies
• Digital evidence analysis
• Attribution techniques

Additionally, prosecutors will have the opportunity to apply the concepts learned through a case study and a practical exercise.

The training is organized by the OAS General Secretariat, through the Department of Legal Cooperation of the Secretariat for Legal Affairs, as Technical Secretariat of the REMJA (Ministers of Justices, other Ministers, Prosecutors and Attorney Generals of the Americas), in coordination with the US Department of Justice (USDOJ).

The Training Program of the OAS/REMJA and the U.S. Department of Justice

One of the main cooperation initiatives led by the OAS, within the framework of the REMJA, is the Cybercrime Training Program for judges, prosecutors, and investigators in the Americas.

The goal of this Program is to train prosecutors, investigators, and judges on the technical and legal aspects of cybercrime, so that in the future these three actors within the judicial system will have the necessary tools to effectively investigate, prosecute, and adjudicate all types of crimes with electronic components.

The REMJA and the Working Group on Cybercrime

Due to the lack of a common legal framework among states, the knowledge gap, the need to increase training to effectively prosecute and penalize these types of crimes, and the lack of investigative technologies, the REMJA created a working group specifically focused on promoting hemispheric legal cooperation on these issues.

This Working Group, chaired by the United States, aims to reduce existing divergences in public policies among Member States by promoting the update or adaptation of state legal systems through: the enactment of legislation and procedural measures; regulations for service providers to ensure the preservation and recovery of stored information; and the development of national strategies that include efforts to prevent, investigate, and prosecute cybercrimes.