SEOUL, August 07 (AJP) - South Korean police and forensic specialists trained about 30 Tajik law enforcement officials in Dushanbe this week in methods for investigating phone scams, deepfake fraud and crimes committed through cryptocurrency.
The program targeted a category of crime that has grown alongside Tajikistan's reliance on money sent home by migrant workers. The World Bank put remittance inflows at about 49 percent of gross domestic product in 2024, up from 39 percent the previous year and the highest share of any economy in the world. Fraud built around fake overseas job placements and visa processing has spread with that dependence.
"This seminar can contribute not only to the response to sharply increasing cybercrime in Tajikistan, but also to the protection of our residents and nationals there," said Jeon Sung-sik, South Korea's ambassador to Tajikistan. He described the program as the first policing cooperation between the two countries and said he expected it to solidify their public safety and law enforcement networks.
The Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) organized the seminar through its Dushanbe office. Its delegation drew experts from the Korean National Police Agency, the National Forensic Service and the consulting firm KOFO. Tajik participants came from the interior ministry, the police and the border guard service.
Before the sessions opened, the visiting experts spent Monday at the Tajik interior ministry's digital forensics center and at border management facilities, examining the conditions local investigators work in.
Lectures ran Tuesday through Thursday. Specialists from the Korean National Police Agency, the Korean National Police University and the National Forensic Service presented South Korean research on using artificial intelligence to detect voice phishing calls and deepfakes, which are video or audio recordings altered to impersonate a real person. Further sessions covered tracing crimes carried out with cryptocurrency, analyzing digital evidence drawn from Telegram and large language models, authenticating collected evidence, and pulling data from mobile phones and internet-connected devices.
KOICA also held a joint workshop on Tuesday with the International Organization for Migration, where officials from both countries reviewed recent patterns in online fraud aimed at migrants and people seeking work abroad.
The program closed Friday with a discussion of international coordination, joined by the British and United States embassies in Dushanbe, the European Union, the International Organization for Migration, the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency, the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Electronic evidence in online fraud, digital sex crimes and virtual asset cases frequently sits on servers outside the country where the crime was reported, which makes such cases difficult to prosecute without agreements between governments.
Ismonalizoda Mavluda, a senior professor in information security and digital technology at a Tajik police training institute, attended the sessions.
"KOICA and the experts from these institutions shared Korea's advanced technology and capability in digital crime, a field where response has been difficult until now," she said. "I hope the cooperation continues."
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