Combatting Human Trafficking in the Digital Era: Mongolia’s Success with Advanced Cyber-Crime Investigation Techniques

Famed for its rich cultural traditions, the vast country of Mongolia, which maintains a sizable semi-nomadic population, is embracing innovation — often in new and experimental ways, guided by the country’s Digital Nation-Mongolia Strategy. This has opened up new fronts for utilizing technology and in 2023, Mongolia turned its attention to a new space — combating human trafficking.

For human traffickers, digitalization has expanded the range of tools available, further deepening the realm of human trafficking crimes. In recent years, dating apps and social media have been exploited by human traffickers who use deceptive tactics to lure victims with false job offers, posting misleading online advertisements and making empty promises of a better life. Girls and young women constitute a vast majority of the 391 victims of trafficking identified by the Mongolian Criminal Police Agency (CPA) from 2012 to 2023.

To combat this evolving challenge, IOM Mongolia implemented a year-long project, titled “Strengthening Mongolia’s Cyber-Crime Investigations on Human Trafficking”, which was launched in July 2023, in collaboration with the Bali Process Regional Support Office (RSO) and the Coordination Council of Crimes Prevention of Mongolia and supported by the IOM Development Fund.

As part of the project, IOM delivered the first artificial intelligence-based cyber-crime investigation training to law enforcement officials in Mongolia. This groundbreaking training also aligns with the IOM strategic plan by protecting migrants with evidence-based innovative solutions. The officers learned various AI-based investigation techniques, practices and principles of open-source intelligence (OSINT), social network intelligence (SOCMINT), geolocation techniques and advanced data scraping methodologies.

The impact of the courses was immediate. After the first session in January, one new case of human trafficking was detected, using the techniques learned during the training. “We have learned the latest approaches and trends to collect and analyze data from all available open sources. I will integrate contents learned from this training into curriculum of detectives’ courses of the police school of our university. "Using modern technology to detect cyber facilitated crimes is one of the most important skills to learn nowadays,” said a professor and lecturer from the University of Internal Affairs of Mongolia.

By leveraging the latest cyber-crime investigation techniques and providing targeted training to law enforcement personnel, Mongolia is contributing to its Vision-2050 Long-Term Development Policy, the core development strategy of Mongolia, which emphasizes the national demand to improve the legal environment for combating transnational organized crimes with innovation-based solutions.

The above was an excerpt from the IOM Development Fund’s Fall 2024 newsletter. For the full story and more, please visit this page.

The IOM Development Fund provides a unique global resource aimed at supporting developing IOM Member States in their efforts to strengthen their migration management capacity. By providing essential "seed funding", the Fund is successfully addressing the capacity development needs of eligible Member States, pilot innovative initiatives and supporting projects that have served as catalytic starting points for further change across a wide range of thematic areas.