Webinar Project DIVERT – Trick and treat: Firearms diversion through fraud in the European Union.

Date
23/06/2021
9:30 - 10:45

Zoom Webinar – Registration required – Please register here.

During their – often very long – lifecycle firearms can be diverted from the legal market into the illegal market through various types of fraudulent activities. In the European Union little systematic empirical research has been undertaken on this type of diversion. This has resulted in a limited intelligence picture on firearms fraud. Project DIVERT analysed 45 of cases of firearms fraud and identified various subtypes of firearms fraud, such as the forging of authorisation to acquire or transfer firearms, the tampering with arms registers and false declarations of theft, loss or deactivation of firearms. While every year thousands of firearms are diverted this way, a more precise number of diverted firearms through fraud cannot be estimated since this type of fraud is often not detected and can involve very large quantities of firearms in specific diversion cases. In this webinar we will present the main findings of Project DIVERT on firearms fraud. This presentation will be followed by the reflections of European firearms experts on these findings from a policy, law enforcement and research perspective.

AGENDA

9:30 Welcome
9:35 Firearms fraud in Europe: overview of characteristics.
Nils Duquet (Flemish Peace Institute)
9:50 Reflection on findings from a research perspective: the Swedish case.
Giovanna Maletta (SIPRI)
10:05 Q&A
10:15 Europol initiatives to combat firearms diversion
Martin van der Meij (Europol)
10:30 Preventing firearms fraud: lessons from Lithuania.
Audrius Ciupala (Head of License Division of the Public Police Board, Lithuania)
10:45 Q&A
11:00 Closure

PRACTICALS

• Wed. 23/06/2021
• Start: 09:30 CEST (Brussels Time) – Duration: +/- 75 min.
• Zoom Webinar – Registration required – Please register here.