New Delhi: US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Christopher A Wray, who is on a two-day visit to India, Tuesday met Director General of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Dinkar Gupta to discuss “activities of terrorist-organised criminal networks”, “ongoing investigations in the attack on the Indian consulate in San Francisco” and “investigation of cyber-terror and cybercrimes”, among other issues.
In a statement Tuesday, the NIA said that during the discussion, Gupta highlighted the “active nexus between terrorist outfits and terrorist elements with members of organised criminal syndicates, which was spreading to the US as well”.
According to the statement, Wray said that “both agencies have a lot in common and the similarities are far greater than the differences”. He also informed the NIA that the FBI was “aggressively investigating the attack on the Indian consulate in San Francisco”.
ThePrint was the first to report that Wray would visit the Central Bureau of Investigation head to discuss “pending extraditions, cybercrime cooperation and strengthening of the informal channel between the two countries”.
Wray’s visit comes at a time when the US has indicted an Indian national and highlighted the alleged involvement of an Indian government official in an assassination plot against wanted Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun. India has established an inquiry committee to investigate these claims.
While the visit is taking place under the shadow of the Pannun episode, it was not kept under wraps, unlike the earlier visits to India by the chief of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the director of National Intelligence.
According to an authoritative source in the security establishment, Wray’s visit was planned “well in advance” and had been in the schedules of the directors of the investigation agencies since May.
‘Threats in cyber domain’
According to the NIA statement, the Director General pointed out that threats in the cyber domain were increasing and that the digital space was being effectively exploited by terrorists and extremists for propagating radical views and recruitment.
Gupta also highlighted that the NIA was seeing the use of cryptocurrency for terrorist financing, the statement said.
Wray said cybercrimes were being committed to fund terrorism and this evolution of the cyber-threat needed a joint response towards investigation of cyber-threat cases, it added.
‘Nexus between terror actors & crime syndicates’
Highlighting the nexus between terror actors and organised crime syndicates, Wray said that a “blending of lines between terrorists and criminals was now visible in cyberspace as well.”
According to the statement, he said that terror incidents like 9/11 and the Mumbai attacks have changed the way in which nations respond to terror threats.
“He emphasised that there was a need to take the partnership and cooperation between the FBI and the NIA to the next level to deal with the constantly evolving challenges and threats of terrorism,” the statement read.
Difficulties encountered by law enforcement agencies across the world in obtaining data from “encryption apps” also came up for discussion, the NIA stated.
“The two sides noted that with the advent of newer technologies at a fast pace, tracing, tracking and investigating crypto transactions is turning out to be a huge challenge. Both the agencies recognised the challenges posed by organised crime networks, terror-related crimes, cyber-enabled terror attacks, ransomware threats, economic crimes and transnational terror crimes,” it said.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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