Project Mercury: Strengthening Global Impact Through CRC & UNODC Collaboration
- May 27, 2025
During 2024 and early 2025, CRC continued to develop its partnership with the UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) in Nairobi covering East Africa. This included presenting at a number of events and culminated in two weeks of capacity building training in Madagascar in November 2024 and February 2025.
The aim of the approach is to ensure that CRC is able to provide our investigative leads to law enforcement in all countries and work directly with them to develop an effective response to Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (CSAE).
This approach, titled Project Mercury, allows CRC to provide law enforcement with information to identify offenders traveling overseas to abuse children. It has already led to the proactive identification and arrest of several individuals traveling between countries in mainland Europe and African states, who were hands-on sexually abusing children.
Tom Farrell, CRC Director of Core Technology says “We are working in partnership with the UNODC to ensure that our training and support is bespoke to the receiving country. It is critical that our suite of technology can be used effectively throughout the world, particularly in those countries who are in the early stages of developing a response to CSAE in all its forms.”