woman with camera

Grant ANITA project awarded to Willem-Jan van den Heuvel on criminal activity on alternative internet locations

Published: 27th February 2018 Last updated: 12th April 2019

Willem-Jan van den Heuvel (TiSEM/JADS) has received a € 365,400 grant from the European Commission for participation in the ANITA project: Advanced Tools for fighting oNline Illegal TrAfficking.

The project, in which seventeen partners from eleven European countries participate, has two objectives: 1) bolstering the ability of enforcement authorities to investigate and enforce by means of instruments that use big data techniques and 2) improving the training of new enforcement officials. In the ANITA project, JADS collaborates with lead partner ENGINEERING and other partners including DITSS, AIT, CERTH, and six police organizations, the Dutch police among them. The project concentrates on like the dark web and the use of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether to track down criminal activities. This information will help to better map criminal networks; the linked data will assist police and judicial organizations in finding, understanding, and preventing illegal trafficking. The newly developed ANITA system will be tested by the partner police organizations and implemented where possible. The project is set to run for a period of three years.