Chatbot “Stop Drugs” helped block more than 300 drug stores, the fight against drug addiction continues, - Oleksandr Gogilashvili
Today, January 16, the Ministry of Internal Affairs presented the work of the all-Ukrainian chatbot “Stop Narcotik”, which was developed by specialists of Kharkiv National University of Internal Affairs.
Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Gogilashvili said that almost all drug trafficking has moved to the Internet, as well as the calculation of such transactions. Therefore, the KHNUVS team proposed a solution — digital fight against drug crime chatbot “Stop Narcotik”.
“It should be noted that at the moment more than 300 addresses of drug stores have been blocked, more than 15 thousand users have met the chatbot. Some users regularly help block drug addresses. And this means that only the joint work of law enforcement agencies, the media and society is an effective method of combating drug crime,” said Oleksandr Gogilashvili.
Dean of the Faculty of Cyberpolice Vyacheslav Markov noted that the chatbot is a simple program that has its own simple functionality and allows law enforcement officers to archive and systematize all drug addresses for further combating drug crimes, as well as blocking them.
“Another part of the chatbot is an online map that contains all the drug ads that regularly appear on the streets of our cities. At the moment, we have about six thousand photos with drug addresses, which we transfer for their further elimination,” he said.
“A week ago we presented our project in the city of Kremenchuk, we immediately noticed that even more users were added to us, which means that we will be able to neutralize even more such shops,” added Vyacheslav Markov.
The chatbot is equipped with instructions for people who have never used Telegram. Users can send advertising of drug addresses in the form of photos, or the address itself. In addition, it is possible to provide information about the physical address where, according to the user, drugs are sold.
Chatbot users can also help daily in blocking drug stores, see the number of already blocked, add friends and even send letters to the Telegram administration.
Acting Head of the Department for Combating Drug Crimes Serhiy Fedchenko stressed that last year alone, specialists of the National Police exposed about 400 cells of illegal sale of narcotic substances using innovative technologies, this result was twice as high as in 2018.
Serhiy Fedchenko noted that by joint efforts to overcome the problem of drug distribution will become easier.
Department of Communications of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine
