Activities of the Transnational Threats Department on “Capacity Building for Criminal Justice Practitioners Combating Cybercrime and Cyber-enabled Crime in SouthEastern Europe”. Co-ordination Board consisting of representatives of all beneficiary countries and the OSCE field operations from the region: From January to April, six regional training courses, each one-week long, were delivered to over 120 criminal justice practitioners from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia. The courses took place in Tirana, Albania at premises provided by the Albanian Security Academy. They focused on the following topics: First Responders Dealing with Digital Evidence (2226 January), Dark Web and Virtual Currencies Basic (1216 February), Live Data Forensics (26 February-2 March), Darknet and Cryptocurrencies Investigations (5-9 March), Malware Investigations (19-23 March), and Transnational Organized Crime: Features and Dimensions of Modern Crime (16-20 April). The courses were delivered in cooperation with a number of partners, such as the Austrian Institute of Technology, European Cybercrime Training and Education Group, Europol's Cybercrime Centre (ECTEG), University College Dublin and UNODC, as well as experts from Belgium, Germany and Norway. The thematic training was supplemented with a ToT programme for a selected group of experts from each beneficiary country. • On 8 and 9 February, in Podgorica, Montenegro, a midterm review meeting of the Board assessed progress in the project’s implementation and discussed challenges and lessons learned so far; • On 29 and 30 May, also in Podgorica, a first wrap-up meeting between the Board and the national trainers reviewed the implementation of the project’s first phase and planned a first round of national training activities for the autumn; • And on 6 and 7 December, in Belgrade, a second wrapup meeting discussed implementation of the project’s upcoming activities in winter/spring 2019, including a second round of national training activities, adaptation of teaching curricula of the relevant national training institutions and a concluding conference. It also explored further needs of the region that should be addressed by future programmatic activities of the OSCE. The experts participating in the project as “national trainers” organized a first round of seven national training activities that were monitored and evaluated by the OSCE field operations in the respective five beneficiary countries. These took place from 19 to 21 September and 11 to 12 October in Bosnia and Herzegovina; from 8 to 12 October in Albania; from 30 October to 1 November in North Macedonia; from 6 to 7 November in Serbia; and on 3 December in Montenegro. More than 90 police officers across the region received further training on cybercrime and digital evidence as a result of this initiative. On 22 and 23 November, a regional workshop reviewed the first round of the previous national training activities, identified existing gaps and challenges, and proposed recommendations for the next round of training activities in winter/spring 2019 in Belgrade. The review focused on three key elements: training needs assessment, development and design; training delivery and flow; and training assessment and evaluation. In addition, in the course of December, TNTD/SPMU supported the development of Albanian and Macedonian versions of training materials for a course on handling digital evidence that will be donated to police training institutions in the respective countries. The “Capacity Building for Criminal Justice Practitioners Combating Cybercrime and Cyber-enabled Crime in South-Eastern Europe”. implementation was steered by a On 20 and 21 September, TNTD/SPMU participated in the regional ministerial conference “Connect Securely” on hightech crime and information security in Belgrade, Serbia, hosted by the Serbian MoI and the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF). TNTD/SPMU presented the OSCE’s activities in the field of combating cybercrime and cyber-enabled crime on a panel focusing on strengthening the capacities of public authorities for the fight against high-tech crime through their co-operation on international projects. From 26 to 30 November, in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and from 3 to 7 December, in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, as well as from 10 to 14 December, in Uzbekistan, TNTD/SPMU, in co-operation with INTERPOL, conducted comprehensive cybercrime needs assessments in these five Central Asian countries. Their purpose was to assess the existing capacities of these States in investigating and prosecuting cybercrime cases, as well as the capacities of their national law enforcement training institutions in providing education and in-service training on this topic. The outcomes of the assessment will serve as an input for planning the OSCE’s future cybercrimerelated programmatic activities in this area. In addition, following consultations with the OSCE participating States from the region, TNTD/SPMU developed a new regional ExB initiative on “Capacity Building on Combating Cybercrime in Central Asia”, which is planned to be launched in the second half of 2019. 23