DIGITAL TOOLS AND CYBERCRIME INVESTIGATION IN FCT-ABUJA BY

Cybercrime involves using computers and Internet by individuals to commit crime. The research was centred on the Nigerian Police Force to explore their technicalities and challenges encountered in the course of investigating and combating the menace of Cybercrime. The research area was FCT-Abuja and the researcher selected two Police Stations namely; Gwarinpa Divisional Headquarters and Asokoro Divisional Headquarters where questionnaires was distributed to respondents comprising of Officers/Men of the Nigeria Police to ascertain effectiveness of digital tools used in the investigation of cybercrime. Data was collected primarily through the use of questionnaire. The researcher adopted the simple random sampling techniques to give an unbiased opportunity for each respondent selected and researcher used the SPSS Statistical tools to analyses the data gotten from the respondents. The study revealed that Mobile Phone tracker is the most effective tools used by the police in investigating cybercrime, the study further revealed that the Nigerian Police are ill equipped with digital tools and lack requisite knowledge to advance the smart and digital sound cybercriminals. The study recommends that Forensic laboratories should be established within all investigating units of law enforcement agencies also; there is need for effective training of law enforcement officers in forensics applications for them to understand the techniques in investigating and handling of forensic evidence and more importantly the trends and patterns of cybercriminals. Finally effective public awareness should be conducted to educate citizens on best safety methods while using the Internet