On December 7, India’s Economic Times's reported on cooperation between India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the U.S. FBI. The article, "CBI & FBI join hands to reduce time required to fulfil requests on information and evidence," analyzes the sources of delay in the mutual legal assistance process that takes place when crime crosses borders.

As I told the Times, "On the Indian side, two issues sometimes cause delay. First, the request needs to come from the central authority in New Delhi - not from a state police official. Second, the details of the request are rather technical, and sometimes not all the information is provided in the correct manner. On the U.S. side, the process is also quite complicated."

To help address these sources of delay, the EWI breakthrough group on Modernizing International Procedures against Cyber-enabled Crimes is working with national and international law enforcement agencies and with private companies. The group’s most recent report, Convicting More Cyber Criminals, recommends key steps governments and companies can take to improve the rate of cyber crime convictions worldwide.

EWI supports the India-U.S. cooperation and looks forward to similar initiatives in many other countries.