The last decades witnessed the ever growing effectiveness of Europe-subsidized border protection projects like SIVE and SIVICC. As maritime smuggling from Morocco towards the European borders of Portugal and Spain was combatted more effectively, the criminal modus operandi changed drastically, approaching air routes with cheap and small planes. New drone technology opens opportunity to both manned and unmanned airborne drug transports. Launched from any location and moving at low altitude and speed to mask their presence with the present clutter environment, drones can autonomously reach any landing site under nearly all circumstances. The ALFA system bridges this detection capability gap by drastically improving the situational awareness through the detection of LSS (Low, Small and Slow) manned and unmanned aircraft. ALFA is future-ready as technologies for drone detection will be a part of the system, which will use heterogeneous, easy-to-deploy mobile sensors based on several novel technologies. All sensor data, augmented by other existing sources of information, will be combined using evolved data fusion, providing accurate positional data for targets including eventual indication of the air vehicle type and reliable prediction of its landing site. This information will be communicated to the regional law enforcement units using a secure communication link and mobile device application, drastically improving the reaction time. Final ALFA capabilities will be demonstrated in a realistic operational context using relevant targets and in close cooperation with two principal end users taking part in the consortium. With their active participation, the ALFA system will make a significant contribution to the development of EUROSUR (in particular, cooperating with SIVE and SIVICC) and be suitable for a range of other missions and scenarios such as homeland and event protection and the protection of critical infrastructure.

The COPKIT project addresses the problem of analysing, preventing, investigating and mitigating the use of new information and communication technologies by organised crime and terrorist groups. This question is a key challenge for policy-makers and LEAs due to the complexity of the phenomenon, the quantity of factors and actors involved, and the great set of criminal and terrorist technological activities in support of OC and terrorist actions. It is a clear VUCA world effect (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity). EUROPOL who is involved in COPKIT as head of its Advisory Board, in this year’s SOCTA 2017 report "Crime in the Age of Technology" states that "This is now, perhaps, the greatest challenge facing LEAs around the world". COPKIT proposes an intelligence-led Early Warning (EW) / Early Action (EA) system, directly related to the methodological approach used by EUROPOL in SOCTA. “Intelligence-led policing” offers a framework to guide operations, prioritizing needs and optimizing resources. EW explain how crimes are evolving, identifying "weak signals", warnings, new trends, and being a basis for assisting decision makers, both strategic and operational levels, in order to develop EA (preparedness, mitigation, prevention and other security policies). Our project, with 17 European organizations from 13 countries participating (9 of them LEAs from 8 countries, one of them leader of EMPACT firearms) and with EUROPOL leading support, aims to create such a technological intelligence and knowledge ecosystem for LEAs, to fight OCT. COPKIT will comprise several phases: (1) developing and applying a EW/EA system and applying it to use-cases, (2) developing a toolkit for knowledge production and exploitation, tested by LEAs in their premises, (3) ensuring respects to EU legal and ethical principles, (4) developing innovative curricula for all aspects of the EW/EA methodology and eco-system to facilitate the uptake by LEAs.