Participation in EU project 'Training to improve and upgrade the skills of Lithuanian, Latvian and Moldovan police forensic laboratory specialists in the use of Cellebrite Advanced Smartphone Analysis with Inseyets (CASA)'
The Forensic Science Service (hereafter referred to as the Lithuanian Police FSS) is part of the Police Department under the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Lithuania. It provides comprehensive scientific and technical assistance to officials from state pre-trial investigation institutions in investigating criminal activities and preventing them. More than 100 scientific employees perform the following functions:
- performing crime scene examination; finding, registering and collecting evidence of criminal activities and marks left by the criminals, as well as other objects of significance for the disclosure and investigation of crimes;
- carrying out laboratory examination of criminal evidence and other objects by using scientific examination equipment and modern examination methods;
- managing central databases and registers, utilising them in the investigation of criminal offences.
The fast-changing IT sector is seeing a new trend in the shift from desktop and laptop computers to mobile devices. They are increasingly becoming the tools of fraud, and the demand for IT forensics has grown tremendously in recent years. The project aims to strengthen the forensic investigation of fraud cases, improve the quality of investigations and prevent future fraudulent activities.
The Lithuanian Police FSS successfully applied for the project titled 'Training to improve and upgrade the skills of Lithuanian, Latvian and Moldovan police forensic laboratory specialists in the use of Cellebrite Advanced Smartphone Analysis with Inseyets (CASA)', which is funded by the Union Anti-Fraud Programme. The Grant Agreement was endorsed on 10 February 2026. The project's total budget is €89,617.80, €71,694.24 (80%) of which is contributed by the European Union. The project duration is nine months.
The main idea of the project is to organise a five-day CASA course with Inseyets for twelve police forensic specialists (nine from Lithuania, one from Latvia and two from Moldova), which is designed to provide training in the forensic recovery and analysis of application data from smartphone extracts. The CASA course uses the Inseyets Physical Analyser (PA) to examine database content and employs third-party open-source tools and Python scripting to decode information that is not typically decoded by forensic tools. During the course, the investigators will decode iOS- and Android-specific applications to perform a pattern-of-life analysis and validate their findings. Project activities will improve the efficiency, professionalism and speed of forensic examinations of smartphones in Lithuania, Latvia and Moldova.
In particular, the Lithuanian Police FSS will ensure that national law enforcement agencies can receive forensic support for fraud and financial crime investigations in an effective and uniform manner throughout the country. For Latvia and Moldova in particular, forensic experts will pass on the knowledge and skills they have gained to their colleagues in their home countries. It is expected that backlogs and queues of pending forensic mobile device examinations will be reduced due to more experienced staff and the explicit application of specialised Cellebrite software tools. The training provided will ensure an equivalent level of expertise among the mobile phone experts of Lithuania, Latvia and Moldova.
Long-term results (3-year horizon, i.e. until the end of 2028):
- Sufficiently increase the overall number of cases processed where mobile device evidence is present.
- Significantly reduced processing queues for pending mobile device forensic investigations due to more experienced staff.
- More competent members of staff who have the knowledge of the software that they use for the examinations that they carry out.
- Significantly improve the quality of examinations performed.
- Significantly improved timeliness of crime investigations, resulting in much shorter investigation times due to skills gained by all investigators, not only locally but also in the Joint Investigation Team due to shared investigator skills.
Short term results (by the end of 2026):
- Increased motivation of employees through training, making jobs more desirable.
- Well-trained staff at lower cost. This would be achieved by training them locally in Lithuania, which is much cheaper than commercial training abroad.
- An obvious increase in organisational efficiency by reducing the time spent on mobile forensic examinations.
- Reducing various types of crime, including fraud, by preventing them and having more experienced investigators.
“Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or [name of the granting authority]. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.”