It was officially announced that Europol and Brazil penned a strategic agreement to co-operate in efforts to combat cybercrime and other cross-border criminal activities. The agreement will enable both parties to exchange general strategic intelligence as well as strategic technical and operational information to enable collaboration in several key areas.
It was further disclosed that because the agreement is a strategic agreement and not an operational agreement, any operational information subsequently shared will not include any personal information. A report published by a leading security firm in February in 2017 highlighted the challenges facing Brazil - and indicated that the country was a major attack destination among developing countries. The report revealed that Brazil was the victim of widespread cyber fraud, with fraudsters focusing particularly to online lenders and emerging financial services.
In addition to cybercrime, Brazil also has huge challenges such as drug trafficking, solicitation, asset recovery, and organized property crime. Under the terms of the agreement, a Brazilian liaison officer will be seconded to Europol which was formally signed by Brazilian Federal Police director-general Leandro Coimbra and Europol director Rob Wainwright. The agreement also represents the conclusion of the negotiations between Brazil and Europol on how to join forces to fight serious and organized crime in the country.
Europol has previously partnered with the Dutch national police, Intel and Kapersky Lab in a joint-initiative which was designed to help victims of ransomware to recover their data without having to pay ransom. Europol's closest partners are law enforcement agencies in the European Union (EU) member states, but the EU's law enforcement agency also operates in partnership with law enforcement agencies, government departments and private sector organizations around the world.