On the 12th and 13th May 2022, OPFA-CULT organized its first workshop entitled “State of Play in the European Scenario” at Europol, in The Hague. The hybrid workshop – both in-person and online – saw the participation and contribution of 30 participants from 16 Member States. Most of the participants were from Law Enforcement Agencies specialized units for cultural property crime.
The first day focused on two sets of presentations: one on the OPFA-CULT project, and one enriched with the contributions from all participating Member States on the state of play on the fight against cultural property crime.
On the second day, participants continued to share their experiences on property crime investigations. This session was followed by Europol’s presentation regarding its role in the fight against cultural property crime. In addition, workshop participants also had the chance to listen to a presentation from Europol’s Innovation Lab on the support it can give to LEAs on identifying and integrating novel technological tools. Finally, workshop participants took the floor once again to share experiences on “Innovation in Cultural Property Investigations” where relevant technological tools and projects were discussed, creating synergies with other relevant EU-funded projects.
We sincerely thank Europol for its strategic support in the organization of this workshop. We also would like to thank all workshop participants and respective LEAs for their significant contribution and attendance, which highlighted the importance of the fight against cultural property crime in the EU MS.
Lastly, we would like to thank the European Commission for funding OPFA-CULT – now an EMPACT Operational Action OPC 2.7 – and making this workshop possible.
