Traffickers’ increasing use of the internet has emerged as a critical criminal trend, with online spaces exploited not only as recruitment grounds but also as platforms for advertising, delivering, and monetising trafficked services. INTERCEPTED focuses on two key digital interception points in the trafficking chain—recruitment and advertisement—analysing how methods vary across languages, platforms, victim profiles, and types of exploitation. The project aims to disrupt traffickers’ digital business models and transform online intelligence into actionable investigative, preventive, and protective measures in the physical world.
Targeting Priority 3 of the Call for Proposals, INTERCEPTED enhances the digital capacities of law enforcement and judicial authorities through public-private cooperation, providing an unbiased understanding of online THB dynamics, and delivering new detection tools and response protocols. The project leverages the OSINT-HUMINT-SIGINT cycle to build real-time capabilities for identifying and responding to online recruitment and advertisement of trafficked services.
Led by the Prosecutor’s Office of Trieste in partnership with the Greek Ministry of Interior and three specialised foundations, INTERCEPTED will:
- Identify and analyse emerging online trends in THB recruitment and advertising;
- Design, develop, and pilot custom investigative technologies;
- Produce tailored training resources and operational guidance;
- Ensure broad transferability and dissemination of results across the EU.
By bridging cyberspace and real-world law enforcement, INTERCEPTED equips authorities with the tools and knowledge needed to counter THB in its evolving digital forms.
Project Details
