Mr Spiezia, a public prosecutor for 28 years, started his professional career as a magistrate in 1990, and served as an anti-mafia public prosecutor since 2003. He has been responsible for investigations of organised crime, money laundering, THB, corruption, drug trafficking, fraud and cybercrime, first in Italy, and then as Deputy National Member for Italy at Eurojust between 2008 and 2012, at which time he became Deputy National Prosecutor at the National Anti-mafia and Anti-terrorism Directorate in Rome, dealing with international judicial cooperation and coordinating investigations of organised crime and terrorism. He returned to Eurojust as National Member in January 2016.

The author of many publications on legal issues, Mr Spiezia also trained judges, lectured and chaired working groups and teams dealing with analysis of criminal, legislative and strategic matters with the Council of Europe, the European Commission and the UNODC. In 2003, he was awarded the Falcone and Borsellino prize for his book, The trafficking and exploitation of human beings.

After his election, Mr Spiezia said: “I am deeply honoured by this vote of confidence from my colleagues at Eurojust. I am inspired by the sense of honest and open collaboration shown by the new President, the College of Eurojust and the Administrative Director. I fully believe that a spirit of collegiality, coupled with experience, skill and enthusiasm, are the keys for Eurojust to fulfil its mission to support judicial authorities in their fight against serious organised crime and terrorism.”

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This widely distributed malware created a network of infected computers called the Andromeda botnet (1). According to Microsoft, Andromeda’s main goal was to distribute other malware families. Andromeda was associated with 80 malware families and, in the last six months, it was detected on or blocked an average of over 1 million machines every month. Andromeda was also used in the infamous Avalanche network, which was dismantled in a huge international cyber operation in 2016. Steven Wilson, the Head of Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre said: “This is another example of international law enforcement working together with industry partners to tackle the most significant cyber criminals and the dedicated infrastructure they use to distribute malware on a global scale. The clear message is that public-private partnerships can impact these criminals and make the internet safer for all of us.”

One year ago, on 30 November 2016, after more than four years of investigation, the Public Prosecutor’s Office Verden and the Luneburg Police in Germany, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania, the Department of Justice, the FBI, Europol, Eurojust and global partners, had dismantled the international criminal infrastructure Avalanche. This was used as a delivery platform to launch and manage mass global malware attacks such as Andromeda, and money mule recruitment campaigns.

Insights gained during the Avalanche case by the investigating German law enforcement entities were shared, via Europol, with the FBI and supported this year’s investigations to dismantle the Andromeda malware last week.

Jointly, the international partners took action against servers and domains, which were used to spread the Andromeda malware. Overall, 1500 domains of the malicious software were subject to sinkholing (2). According to Microsoft, during 48 hours of sinkholing, approximately 2 million unique Andromeda victim IP addresses from 223 countries were captured. The involved law enforcement authorities also executed the search and arrest of a suspect in Belarus. Simultaneously, the German sinkhole measures of the Avalanche case have been extended by another year. An extension of this measure was necessary, as globally 55 per cent of the computer systems originally infected in Avalanche are still infected today.

The measures to combat the malicious Andromeda software as well as the extension of the Avalanche measures involved the following EU Member States: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the following non-EU Member States: Australia, Belarus, Canada, Montenegro, Singapore and Taiwan.

The operation was supported by the following private and institutional partners: Shadowserver Foundation, Microsoft, Registrar of Last Resort, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and associated domain registries, Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics (FKIE), and the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI).

The operation was coordinated from the command post hosted at Europol’s HQ.

(1) Botnets are networks of computers infected with malware, which are under the control of a cybercriminal. Botnets allow criminals to harvest sensitive information from infected computers, such as online banking credentials and credit card information. A criminal can also use a botnet to perform cyberattacks on other computer systems, such as denial-of-service attacks.

(2) Sinkholing is an action whereby traffic between infected computers and a criminal infrastructure is redirected to servers controlled by law enforcement authorities and/or an IT security company. This may be done by assuming control of the domains used by the criminals or IP addresses. When employed at a 100% scale, infected computers can no longer reach the criminal command-and-control computer systems and criminals can therefore no longer control the infected computers. The sinkholing infrastructure captures victims’ IP addresses, which can subsequently be used for notification and follow-up through dissemination to National CERTs and network owners.

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The joint operations were co-led by units specialised in cybercrime at the offices of the prosecutor generals of Frankfurt am Main and of Dresden, as well as the State Criminal Police of Hesse and Saxony, with the assistance of the German Federal Criminal Police. The operations were carried out in close cooperation with the judicial and law enforcement authorities of France, the Netherlands, Spain, Canada, San Marino and Switzerland.

This international joint operation is the result of the investigations conducted in Germany against criminal networks suspected of managing the internet-based download portals www.usenetrevolution.info, www.town.ag and www.usenet-town.com, which illegally offered licensed or copyrighted materials (such as films, TV shows, software, computer games, music, e-books and e-papers), without paying the required fees to license or copyright owners.

In total, the download portals provided illegal access to approximately 2 million links to licensed or copyrighted materials. The owners of the platforms managed to make an illicit profit of several million euros, and this copyright infringement created damages of approximately EUR 7,5 million.

Through a coordination centre established at its premises in The Hague, Eurojust supported the international joint operations and ensured the transmission and execution of European Investigation Orders, rogatory letters and a European Arrest Warrant, as well as the swift exchange of operational information collected on the ground among all the judicial and law enforcement authorities involved.

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Ladislav Hamran has 17 years’ experience as a prosecutor. He started working at the General Prosecution Office in Bratislava in 2003, investigating and prosecuting mainly economic crime and corruption, until his secondment to Eurojust as National Member for the Slovak Republic in 2007. He was elected Vice-President of Eurojust in December 2013, and was re-elected Vice-President in December 2016. As Vice-President, he was mainly responsible for information and knowledge management projects, leading Eurojust’s Working Group on reorganisation and prioritisation.

Mr Hamran said: “I am overwhelmed with emotion and extremely grateful that my colleagues have placed their trust in me once again. They twice voted for me for Vice-President, and have now granted me the ultimate honour, President of Eurojust. I vow to listen carefully to people throughout the organisation to help make Eurojust a trusted and effective key partner in judicial cooperation. I fully believe in collegiality, both as an approach and as a working method, by developing healthy, effective and sustainable links between the College and the Administration, and also with our external partners and stakeholders. I want my term in office to be marked by objectivity, fairness, transparency and integrity. My door will always be open. I look forward to modernising and professionalising Eurojust, in line with its wonderful new premises.”

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​The framework of today’s joint operation is a new criminal proceeding carried out by the OAG of Switzerland in the context of a series of ongoing football-related criminal investigations. This new criminal proceeding of the OAG is conducted on suspicion of, inter alia, passive private corruption and other crimes in connection with the award of media rights for certain countries at the FIFA World Cups of 2018, 2022, 2026 and 2030.

​Multiple premises were searched, assets were seized and interviews were conducted as a result of this joint operation.

​Through a coordination centre established at its premises in The Hague, Eurojust supported the coordination of the international joint operations and ensured the transmission and execution of rogatory letters as well as the swift exchange of operational information collected on the ground among all judicial and law enforcement authorities involved.

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18 individuals were arrested and more than 30 premises were searched as a result of the joint operations. This successful joint operation was the result of close coordination between the judicial and law enforcement authorities of Italy and Germany, with the support of Eurojust.

Eurojust organised two coordination meetings, in July and September 2017, during which the involved judicial and law enforcement authorities exchanged the results of their investigative activities and agreed on a common strategy to collect evidence and, at the same time, protect the public from the dangers of a possible armed action by the criminal group.

In preparation for today’s joint operations, Eurojust assisted the judicial authorities of Italy and Germany in swiftly exchanging operational information collected on the ground and drafting several European Investigation Orders, one of the newest and most effective tools to enhance judicial cooperation in the fight against transnational organised crime and terrorism.

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Throughout his professional career, Mr Škrlec has been involved in international relations and cooperation. He has participated in numerous international projects and has worked with international institutions in the field of criminal justice. He has been a member of the Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures (MONEYVAL) at the Council of Europe since 2005, and is currently participating in the work of its European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT). Since 2011, he is a contact point for Slovenia in the Genocide Network.

Mr Škrlec is a regular speaker at the Centre for Judicial Training at the Ministry of Justice and has participated as a speaker in several meetings and seminars organised by Eurojust. Currently, he is actively participating in the Twinning project between the Republic of Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina on strengthening the law enforcement agencies in that country.

In 2007, during the Slovenian EU Presidency, he chaired the working group negotiating the Council Decision on the strengthening of Eurojust and obtained in-depth knowledge about Eurojust as an EU body. From 2008 to 2012, Mr Škrlec served as the State Secretary at the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Slovenia. He actively participated in preparation and adoption of legislation introducing important reforms, such as plea bargaining in criminal procedure and the establishment of the Specialised Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Slovenia.

Before joining Eurojust, Mr Škrlec was the Director General at the Office of the State Prosecutor General of the Republic of Slovenia.

Upon his appointment, Mr Škrlec said, “It is with a strong sense of responsibility that I am taking over the tasks of the National Member of Slovenia. Increasing terrorist threats, growing cybercrime and human trafficking are presenting major challenges to investigation and prosecution of criminal offences. My intention is therefore, to invest my knowledge, experience and energy into improvement of cooperation between Slovenian prosecution authorities and authorities of other Member States to enhance their efficiency when prosecuting the most dangerous types of cross-border crime. With energy, dedication and commitment, I will, together with my colleagues at the Slovenian Desk at Eurojust, aim to sustain and improve the existing high-quality standards, which are enabling Eurojust to achieve its success at establishing the European Union as an area of freedom, security and justice.”

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