National Crime Agency

Introduction

The National Crime Agency (NCA) leads the UK's fight against serious and organised crime, protecting the public by disrupting and bringing to justice those serious and organised criminals who pose the highest risk to the UK. NCA officers and analysts work at the forefront of law enforcement, working to build an extensive intelligence picture of all serious and organised crime threats, and to develop and deliver specialist capabilities on behalf of law enforcement and other partners.

The Challenge

As serious and organised crime evolves, so too do the skills and capabilities that law enforcement need to investigate and disrupt the most dangerous and technologically sophisticated offenders, including those undertaking illicit and illegal activities on the Dark Web. To maintain its proactive edge, the National Crime Agency must effectively harness and utilise emerging technologies and the latest research in order to deliver and maintain innovative and world-leading specialist capabilities in intelligence collection and real-time data analysis.

National Strategic Assessment of Serious and Organised Crime

What We Did

Through the analysis of anonymous decentralised networks and cryptographic protocols, we developed a library of innovative and cutting-edge artificial intelligence-driven Dark Web monitoring tools, including the use of deep learning-based graph neural networks (GNNs) to classify Dark Web network traffic and deliver real-time actionable intelligence.

Graph Neural Networks (GNNs)

Key Outcomes

Our innovative artificial intelligence-driven Dark Web monitoring tools enabled the National Crime Agency, in collaboration with international law enforcement partners, to identify and significantly disrupt Dark Web marketplaces that were facilitating illicit and illegal activities relating to child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA). Furthermore, our support enabled the creation and deployment of the next generation of intelligence methods used to analyse bulk data derived from Dark Web monitoring and other Dark Web-related data sources.