Criminals throughout Europe and beyond are making fun of artificial intelligence (AI) and encrypted currencies to clarify their illegal activities, which are new a report From the European Union Agency for Cooperation in the field of law enforcement (Europol).
It was released on March 18, and the evaluation of the threat of serious and organized crime (SOCTA) shows how these advanced technologies allow law stations to work faster, more intelligent and with the least dangerous to detection, and create a major challenge for the police forces.
Europol results highlight the effect of artificial intelligence on the crime. Lawbreakers of Trucophachid intelligence is used to capture deceptive emails, formulate fraud messages in different languages, and multiply videos or fake sound known as Deepfakes.
These tools help fraudulently impersonate the personality of people, blackmail, or pass personal information with frightening accuracy. The audio cloning and direct videos of artificial intelligence transmits these threats to another, which makes fraud, extortion and stealing identity more effective.
Deepfakes in Europe
During the Slovak parliamentary elections in October 2023, DeepFake appeared just two days before the vote. Voice photos falsely Michel Shaimika, leader of the Slovakia Progressive Party, discusses plans to manipulate the elections, including buying votes from the Rome minority, and suggesting twice the price of beer.
In August 2023, during the Poland national campaign, the Civil Platform Party used clips from the voice of Prime Minister Mattis Muroyki, mixed with real footage, in their ads. These clips lack responsibility, which led to general criticism.
In February 2025, French President Emmanuel Macron published the AI Action summit in Paris using Deepfake videos. He showed him his liberation in scenes of popular films, intended as creative promotion. While some found that it was entertaining, others criticized it as inappropriate for the general official, which sparked a debate on the responsible use of Deepfake technology.
The DeepFake video, which includes former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghei, promoted a fake investment plan on Instagram, persuading about 45 Italian to follow the fraudulent advice. This issue embodies the use of Deepfakes for financial fraud targeting European citizens.
Catherine de Paul, the executive director of Europol, describes Internet crimes as a high -risk digital battle targeting governments, companies and ordinary citizens. It indicates that the attacks by artificial intelligence strike more precisely and destroy more than ever. Some of these attacks mix profit motives with the efforts made to plant chaos, which are often linked to state or ideological business schedules.
EUROPOL has revealed that even low -skilled criminals are now withdrawing detailed plans that once know experts, thanks to the ability of artificial intelligence to simplify complex tasks. Technology simplifies everything from the creation of harmful programs to changing images in sexual assault materials on children, which extinguishes damage criminals.
Read also: Here’s how much a bybit is still tracked.
Checks enhance the danger
Cracks, such as Bitcoin, digital assets, such as NFTS, play a larger role. Once it is mostly linked to online crime, these Blockchain tools are now on traditional crimes such as drug trafficking, human smuggling, and money laundering.
Their secret design that is difficult to do makes it impossible for the police to follow the money. Criminals also create smart ways to steal encryption or seize the systems that depend on them.
Europol said it became difficult for law enforcement agencies to keep pace with this new development. Despite adapting to these new threats, the authorities only managed to obtain about two percent of the profits of criminals-a small dent compared to the technology-based crime scale.
The agency warns that quantum computing may soon break the encryption today, leaving the current security without interest. Even criminal networks are even more amazing and completely independently managed by artificial intelligence, with no human participation, may appear one day.
“Criminals adopt a new technology faster than we can imagine,” De Paul said. “Artificial intelligence is not just a tool for them-it is a change of games that makes crime easier and more efficient.” You see the report as a loud warning, and urged the police to sharpen its skills and across the border.
Socta refers to real examples: Deepfakes deceived people to deliver money, while shuttle Blockchain tech has been laundering money across countries. Budgets target new investors jumping to cryptocurrencies, and companies that carry large encryption reserves become major signs of the scammers.
Still, Europol pays work. Police forces in Europe are working to enhance their technical knowledge and work together in the world to respond. De Paul asserts that the authorities need to increase their efforts and build stronger defenses against the crime operating in Amnesty International.
The report, one of the most legislators and police in Europol, directs to the greatest risk. They are zeros in major crime areas such as electronic attacks, online fraud, children’s exploitation, migrant smuggling, drug trafficking and guns, and illegal waste.
It also looks at future challenges, such as 6G MetaverSe and Lightning-Past networks, which may make criminals stop them tougher.
With technology rushing forward, Europol messages are loudly: criminals will not slow down, and law enforcement cannot be able to withstand the costs of that.
