Industry partners, such as banks, telcos, credit cards companies and ISPs, will also be involved. The center will deal with complaints proactively, he said.

The plans also include establishing a dedicated cyber crime unit, as Kleintjes' team of 12 police officers with technology expertise can't keep on top of the ever-increasing volume of work. The first stage of the center will be complete in December.

'This needs to happen,' he said. 'The police have difficulty with having sufficient [technology] knowledge within the police force to deal with [high-tech] crimes.'

New Zealand Police are 'certainly up there with the rest' in fighting e-crime, said Kleintjes. But it is hard to keep up with the growth of technology-related crime. To keep on top of it, the police have developed tools that allow officers to examine, for example, a hard drive without having to be a forensic expert.

'Of course, there are cases where forensic expertise is still required, but in 80% of the cases, [detectives] could search [for example] a hard drive themselves and that would reduce our workload considerably,' he said.