Police officers equipped on cyber crime investigation

TANZANIA: ABOUT 30 Police Officers from different regions in the country including Zanzibar have been trained and equipped on how to investigate cyber crime in efforts to fight  against cyber crime.

“We continue to build the capacity of our investigation officers in this area to be able to find out the various methods used by cybercriminals,” the Commissioner for Operations and Training, Commissioner (CP) Awadhi Haji told the Daily News on Wednesday adding that some criminals use advanced techniques and are highly technically skilled.

Commissioner Haji said that the world is facing the cyber crimes challenge, where Tanzania is part of the world.

He said that due to the growth of technology, the Police Force  will continue to train their officers to learn the technologies that are constantly changing, while criminals are also learning new methods of crime by using the internet.

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“Nowadays, thieves do not use guns or other weapons. You can’t hear thieves entering banks or petrol stations with shotguns for the aim of stealing. You can’t hear robbery from anyone using a gun. The events do not exist any more because the police force has been able to face them with all their strength… Right now they are using technology to transfer money from one account to another either in the bank or on the phone,” CP Haji said .

Furthermore, CP Haji said the training followed the instructions given by President Samia Suluhu Hassan during the closing of the training of the police officers in 2022 at the Tanzania Police School in Moshi.

“The Commander in Chief and our President  ‘Mama’ Samia directed us to strengthen ICT. Therefore from 2022 to date we have provided training to more than 200 officers in the area of science investigation of criminal force,” CP Haji said.

However, he said the situation is not bad compared to other Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries and asked the officers  to be ready to fight the crime which is carried out by individuals or organisations.

The Associate Research Professor of Applied E-commerce Security and Information Systems from the Open University Tanzania, Prof George Oreku said cyber crime is a global problem that Tanzanians should be aware of.

“For example, countries like the United States give them priority because they understand its effects and have set up critical infrastructure in cybercrime.

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Tanzania awareness is low while it is the main economic pillar in any country. There is not enough push to make Tanzanians focus on those issues,” Prof Oreku stressed.

On her part, the graduate of the training WP Ida Msaky said that the training will enable her to conduct her daily routine at an advanced level.

She said they learned penetration testing, ethical hacking, security audit, visual investigation,  fourth industrial revolution technologies and other various laws.

In order to deal with the crime you should know some primary features  so we have learned it and it will help improve our work performance,” WP Msaky said .