Enhancing Training and Technology Adoption in Terrorism Financing Investigations Through Gamification

The purpose of this publication is to present the methodology followed in the European project Anti-FinTer for training Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) and Financial Investigation Units (FIUs) in using emergent technologies to reveal financing activities of terrorism. The study presents, compares, and discusses the results gathered from three Capture-the-Flag events which involved LEAs and FIU officers. Designing curricula and training programs for improving terrorist financing investigations is challenging due to this domain's intricate and rapidly evolving nature and the multi-disciplinary knowledge needed. Furthermore, new tools based on novel paradigms, such as Artificial Intelligence and Big Data, are involved in terrorist financing investigations. However, they are too often unnecessarily complex and hard to use. These characteristics often limit law enforcement and end-users' engagement level and expertise in these technologies. For this reason, in this work, we describe an approach using gamification techniques to enhance technology and knowledge transfer for terrorist financing investigations. In fact, designing and implementing realistic and interactive challenges makes it possible to speed up the learning process, increase officers' expertise in using new technologies and improve their readiness. At the same time, this approach allows technical partners to gather end-user needs and facilitate development/validation cycles. This methodology has been validated in three pilots: one held in Madrid in 2022, a second in The Hague in 2023 and a final one in Vienna in 2023. In these pilots, law enforcement personnel were challenged in addressing tasks related to fighting financing terrorism activities through the dark Dark Web, crypto-assets or new payment systems. Results showed an increasing engagement, motivation, and knowledge in the participants.