MOSCOW. Oct 27 (Interfax) - Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev has spoken of the low clearance rate of crimes using information technologies, which are used to recruit militants, for money laundering, and to finance terrorism.
"The increase in the number of crimes using information technologies causes concerns. The number of these crimes increased by one-fourth and exceeded 66,000 in the district this year. Their clearance rate remains low," Patrushev said at a meeting on national security in the Central Federal District.
These crimes are mainly connected to the dissemination of extremist materials, embezzlement of the property of citizens and organizations, including their money, and drug dealing, he said.
"Information technologies are being used increasingly more actively to recruit militants, for money laundering, and for financing of terrorist and extremist activities," Patrushev said.
More than 12,000 extremist materials have been blocked and 67 million rubles intended for financing these activities have been seized in the Central Federal District in 2021, he said.
"Attempts are still being made to use the information space to destabilize the sociopolitical situation, including by artificially fomenting tension in ethnic and religious relations and cultivating an ideology of nationalism and separatism," Patrushev said.
Patrushev called for intensification of work to protect information resources in bodies of state authority and local self-government bodies from malware, including by speeding up the transition to domestic software, as well as ensuring active use of information technologies to preserve and protect the cultural, historical, spiritual, and moral values of the peoples of Russia.