BPD Gets Equipment to Combat Cybercrimes

A high level meeting was held to strengthen the Central America Justice and Security Sector capacities to effectively prevent, identify and prosecute cybercrime. Recently, legislation was tabled to address cybercrimes in Belize following many incidents of cyber bullying and defamation by way of social media platforms. At today’s event, held by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, a digital forensic laboratory was officially handed over to Belize Police Department. On hand were Commissioner of Police Chester Williams and Home Affairs Minister Kareem Musa.

Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs

Kareem Musa

“Our digital forensics laboratory and what the entails is the receiving of devices and training from the UNODC, who are our partners in this cybercrime initiative. Of course a lot of the equipment that we are receiving is the latest advanced technology that will help us to open cell phones, open computers, different types of electronic devices, which can be a huge aid in terms of detecting and preventing cybercrime. As you know cybercrime over the last few years has become a huge deal especially internationally because of all the cyber attacks that are now taking place, the hacking of people’s accounts, the invasion of privacy and all of these things So this is now to pivot into a new era and it is, in my opinion, a revolutionary step for us as a small country.”

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

Chester Williams

“We are grateful to the UNODC for this very generous donation today of computers and software that is going to enable us to be able to properly investigate cybercrime, child pornography, fraud and other internet-related crimes. We are seeing a trend now where a number of persons are using Facebook, in particular, creating fake accounts and defaming the character of people. With what we have received today, we will be able to unmask those fake accounts. We are collaborating more closely with Facebook to be able to get information on these fake accounts and other accounts that may be used to defame person’s character. And so I want to say to those persons who believe that they can hide behind a fake Facebook account and create mischief that now we will have the capability to be able to unmask them and then deal with them. we have the cybercrime act and we have the defamation bill which may likely become law very shortly that requires that we be able to extract information from computer devices, search the internet and deal with Facebook to get whatever evidence we may need to enhance any prosecution that we may wish to proceed with.”