Christopher A Wray, Director FBI, leading a high-level FBI delegation, visited the NIA headquarters on Tuesday and held extensive discussions with NIA Director General, Dinkar Gupta and senior officials of both agencies. During the meeting, candid and wide-ranging discussions were held on a host of issues, including the acts and activities of Terrorist-Organised Criminal Networks, ongoing investigations in the US in the attack on the Indian Consulate in San Francisco, investigation of cyber-terror and cyber-crimes of various kinds.
NIA DG highlighted the active nexus between the terrorist outfits and terrorist elements with members of Organised Criminal Syndicates, which was spreading to the US as well. FBI Director said that both the agencies have a lot in common and the similarities are far greater than the differences. On the nexus between terror actors and organised crime syndicates, Wray said that a blending of lines between terrorists and criminals was now visible in cyberspace as well.
Terror incidents like 9/11 and the Mumbai attacks have changed how nations respond to terror threats, he observed, emphasising the need to take the partnership and cooperation between the FBI and the NIA to the next level to deal with the constantly evolving challenges and threats of terrorism. During the meeting, the NIA DG pointed out that threats in the cyber domain were increasing. Digital space was also being effectively exploited by terrorists and extremists for propagating radical views and recruitment, he said, adding that NIA was also seeing the use of cryptocurrency for terrorist financing.
FBI Director Wray added that increasingly, cybercrimes are being committed to fund terrorism. He stressed this evolution of the cyber-threat needs a joint response towards the investigation of cyber-threat cases.
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