Cybercrime experts from police forces around the world are coming together to form a new body, the Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce (J-CAT), aiming to tackle the smartest online criminals.

Andy Archibald, deputy head of the National Cyber Crime Unit with the UK’s National Crime Agency, has been placed in charge of the team, which will be based in the European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) at Europol.

Cybercrime police from Austria, Canada, Colombia, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK and the US have already committed to taking part in the six-month pilot for J-CAT.

The team will coordinate investigations into widespread threats, including viruses that steal banking logins, and high-profile criminals, such as those dealing hacker tools and selling personal data on underground forums.

As many as 18 individuals from the respective global law enforcement agencies will be relocated to the Hague where the EC3 is based. They will gather and share intelligence on cybercriminal activity before building cases, which will be presented to the J-CAT board headed by Archibald. That board will then decide on which cases to pursue.

Troels Oerting, head of the EC3, told the Guardian that J-CAT would be able to get investigations into “top-level criminals” moving far quicker than before. “It’s not a talk shop, it’s an operational entity. This has to lead to more arrests… we have already identified a number of good cases,” said Oerting.

“By having the member states here with access to the majority of their own intelligence and information at their fingertips, we will able to prioritise much earlier. They will be able to make a decision immediately to start an investigation.”

In a previous interview with the Guardian, Oerting expressed frustration at the lack of cooperation from Russia, a known hotbed of cybercriminal activity. He said today the task force would also seek to form ties with those in the Eastern Bloc, where much of today’s online crime originates.

“The majority of the crime we see now is Russian-speaking crime. That might not be Russian from the Federation of Russia… we need to have someone engaged at the other end doing something.”

As the recent investigations into the Cryptolocker and Gameover Zeus malware showed, tracking and arresting Russian cyber crooks has proven tricky. The alleged perpetrator, Evgeniy Bogachev, remains at large despite a global law enforcement effort to apprehend him.

“There are a number of countries that will still provide online criminals with a relatively safe haven. These may be countries which do not have any cybercrime laws in place, do not have the expertise and capabilities to deal with online criminals, where corruption enables online criminals to operate, or indeed where political motives prevent international cooperation from happening,” said Brian Honan, independent security consultant and founder of Ireland’s first Computer Emergency Response Team.

“But as more and more countries start to take online crime seriously and become more cooperative the number of these ‘safe havens’ should reduce also.”

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