Network Modelling of Criminal Collaborations with Dynamic Bayesian Steady Evolutions
The threat status and criminal collaborations of potential terrorists are
hidden but give rise to observable behaviours and communications. Terrorists,
when acting in concert, need to communicate to organise their plots. The
authorities utilise such observable behaviour and communication data to inform
their investigations and policing. We present a dynamic latent network model
that integrates real-time communications data with prior knowledge on
individuals. This model estimates and predicts the latent strength of criminal
collaboration between individuals to assist in the identification of potential
cells and the measurement of their threat levels. We demonstrate how, by
assuming certain plausible conditional independences across the measurements
associated with this population, the network model can be combined with models
of individual suspects to provide fast transparent algorithms to predict group
attacks. The methods are illustrated using a simulated example involving the
threat posed by a cell suspected of plotting an attack.