U.S. to assign prosecutor at Europol

The United States will assign a prosecutor to Europol, the European Union's law enforcement agency, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced on Wednesday.

"We will be temporarily assigning a prosecutor from our department's criminal division to sit in Eurojust and work with EC3," said the head of the U.S. Department of Justice during her visit to Europol's headquarters here.

Eurojust is the EU's judicial cooperation unit. EC3, or "the European Cybercrime Center", commenced its activities in January 2013.

"This assignment is a sign of the importance we attach to Eurojust, Europol, and EC3 -- and we look forward to assessing together whether this should be a permanent arrangement in the future," said Lynch.

Lynch hailed "unparalleled cooperation" among the United States, partner nations, and EC3, citing the takedown of the Darkode hacking forum -- an online underground marketplace where hackers convened to arrange the purchase, sale and trade of malicious software, botnets and other tools designed to facilitate computer intrusions, as well as stolen personal information.

She also mentioned Operation Onymous in November 2014 which cracked down so-called "dark market" websites. Those sites relied on the anonymity of buyers and sellers to traffic narcotics, firearms, stolen credit card data, fake passports, computer-hacking tools and other illegal goods and services.

Europol works closely with law enforcement agencies in the 28 EU member states and in other non-EU partner states such as Australia, Canada, the United States and Norway. Its personnel come from different kinds of law enforcement agencies, including the police, border police, customs and security services. Endit