Dear Ms. Merilin Piipuu,

We are writing to request your agency’s participation in an upcoming FBI international training on Approaching Cultural Property as Critical Infrastructure: Law Enforcement Cyber and Art Crime Methods, taking place in Tallinn, Estonia, November 10–12, 2026. 

With funding from the U.S. Department of State, the FBI is organizing a three-day unclassified training focused on investigating criminal attacks on national cultural assets by sophisticated criminal enterprises and nation-state actors who use cyber-enabled tools to aid the disruption, destruction, and looting of cultural sites and property.  This cross-sectoral training brings together law enforcement investigators, prosecutors, cultural officials, and civil society subject-matter experts from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, and the United States to discuss the current regional cyber threat landscape and cultural asset vulnerabilities and develop cohesive plans for conducting law enforcement operations that cultivate resiliency, share intelligence, and implement best practices for investigative and prosecutorial response. FBI trainers from the Art Crime Team and Cyber Division will present a methodology that treats cultural property and sites as part of a nation’s critical infrastructure and blends specialized art and cultural property investigative techniques with cyber response best practices to combat criminal threats.   

This interdisciplinary training will include the following discussion topics:  

• increasing cyber resiliency for cultural assets; 

• best practices for evidence collection in case of cyber-attacks involving cultural assets; 

• specialized art and cultural property investigative techniques;  

• “digital exhaust” and its potential impacts on investigations; 

• best practices for incorporating civil society subject matter experts into investigations and subsequent prosecutions. 

We kindly request your support in sending one representative from your agency to the training. The training will be held in English. Participants are asked to attend all three days of the workshop.  

Your agency’s participation is essential for the goal of developing cross-sectoral regional readiness to counter shared cyber and physical criminal threats to the cultural heritage central to the identity and cohesion of each nation. We look forward to your response and to cooperating on this important initiative.  

Please reply by Tuesday, 8^th of September 2026, to the following contact with confirmation of attendance to include the name, title, email address, and cellular telephone of the participants.  

RSVP details and questions should be directed to Elina Feldmane, [email protected] with a copy to Leeza Fernand, [email protected]

Thank you for your consideration. 

Sincerely,

Jelizaveta Potapenkova

Protocol Assistant

U.S. Embassy Tallinn

Executive Office

Mobile: +372 5340-7832