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The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has signed a renewed Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with the National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU) in Gandhinagar for the next five years, marking a significant expansion of their long-standing collaboration in cyber forensics and digital investigation capabilities.
ED said the MoA builds upon the earlier MoA signed between NFSU and ED in 2021, under which NFSU had augmented the agency's digital forensic capabilities by establishing and maintaining Digital Forensic Cyber Labs in different regions. Following the successful completion of that five-year term, ED said the new agreement is effective for a further period of five years. Under the new MoA, NFSU shall provide consultancy services for the establishment and upgradation of Cyber Forensic Laboratories for ED across various locations in India, including infrastructure development, advanced forensic tools, capacity building, training, and technical support in digital forensics, cybercrime investigation and related domains. NFSU works closely with the Central and state governments on projects and research spanning forensic and allied sciences, and has emerged as a national hub for cutting-edge expertise in digital forensics, malware analysis, network forensics, and crypto and blockchain tracing, which are precisely the domains critical to modern financial crime investigation. NFSU's specialised short- and long-term training programmes, backed by its academic and research strength, will continue to upskill ED officers in the latest forensic methodologies, ensuring ED's workforce keeps pace with the changing nature of financial and cybercrime. This renewed collaboration reflects ED's continued commitment to strengthening its technical and investigative capabilities in combating financial crimes involving digital and cyber elements, in line with its mandate under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), 1999, and the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act (FEOA), 2018. The partnership also underscores the growing importance of specialised forensic expertise in modern financial crime investigation and reaffirms both institutions' shared commitment to building world-class cyber forensic infrastructure in the country. (ANI)
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