According to Interpol Secretary General Jurgen Stock in the Indian capital, incidents of cybercrime and online child abuse are severely underreported, and the cost of cybercrime globally is predicted to reach $10.5 trillion by 2025.
Speaking to the media on Monday in advance of Interpol's 90th General Assembly, which starts on Tuesday in New Delhi, Stock noted that organised crime networks were making billions of dollars, and that the fact that less than 1% of illicit financial flows worldwide were intercepted and recovered should worry everyone more than it does.
Delegations from 195 Interpol members, including ministers, police chiefs, heads of national central offices, and senior police officers, would attend the four-day Interpol event, according to the Xinhua news agency.
The General Assembly, Interpol's highest governing body, convenes once a year to make significant decisions on the organization's operations.
The Anti-Money Laundering Rapid Response Protocol, which Interpol established, was also mentioned by the Secretary General. Its members were able to recover more than $60 million in criminal proceeds from cyber-enabled fraud thanks to this protocol in just the past 10 months.
"Our Global Crime Trend Report also highlighted the massive increase in online child sexual exploitation and abuse, figures which are only set to increase. We know that cybercrime and online child abuse are significantly underreported, often because victims are ashamed or in cases of fraud, embarrassed, which means that the figures we see are just the tip of the iceberg," Stock expressed.
Police around the world are overwhelmed with data, and too often they do not have the capacity to deal with the volume of cases, and here Interpol is uniquely placed to provide the support they need, he also added.
