Police officers currently see cybercrime and financial crimes as the biggest threats worldwide, according to a report by the international policing organisation, Interpol.
As the Lyon-based agency said it also expects these crimes to increase significantly in the coming years.
The report said that with 195 member countries, Interpol was the most important policing organisation in the world.
The agency on Wednesday published a report on global crime trends for the first time.
“Understanding and anticipating crime trends is an absolute foundation of policing,’’ Interpol quoted its secretary-general Jürgen Stock as saying.
“The report, which is not available for public inspection, is intended to be available to law enforcement agencies.’’
According to the report, more than 60 per cent of the police officers interviewed considered money laundering, internet fraud, phishing and ransom ware to be a great or very great danger.
In so-called ransom ware attacks, computers are encrypted by malware and thus rendered unusable; Phishing means the theft of data, for example with fake websites or emails.
The report said online fraud, money laundering and the trade in synthetic drugs were seen as the greatest current dangers in Europe.
Some three quarters of the respondents also assume that cases of sexual abuse of children on the internet would increase decisively in the next three to five years.