Hong Kong hosts INTERPOL annual meeting on combating cybercrime

HONG KONG -- The INTERPOL's Cybercrime Expert Group In-Person Annual Meeting opened in Hong Kong on Monday, attracting over 120 participants, including law enforcement officers and experts from the industry and international organizations from more than 30 countries and regions.

The two-day meeting was co-organized by the Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) and INTERPOL under the theme "Disrupting the Industrialization of Cybercrime."

Chow Yat-ming, the commissioner of police of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government, said in his opening remarks that to address the threat of cybercrime, the HKPF is committed to developing next-generation technologies, fostering public-private partnerships, and creating a public safety ecosystem through various collaboration platforms, advanced technology projects and industrial participation.

Chow emphasized that to effectively combat cybercrime, it requires strengthened cross-border cooperation, cross-sector partnerships, and continuous capacity building.

The meeting serves as a platform bringing together international law enforcement agencies, academia and the industry to transform collective insight into collective impact against cybercrime through experience sharing, intelligence exchange and coordinated action.

Neal Jetton, cybercrime director of INTERPOL, said that the meeting demonstrated Hong Kong's proactive role as a key hub for international policing cooperation and expressed hope that the meeting would achieve practical solutions and collective action to effectively combat and dismantle cybercrime.

The meeting provides a platform for in-depth discussions on combating the cybercrime industry supply chain, covering multiple topics including cybercrime ecosystems, online extortion, artificial intelligence and virtual asset tracing. The participants shared and exchanged views on cross-border intelligence exchange, coordinated operations and capacity building.