Massive Online ID Fraud Ring Busted

Iphtashu Fitz writes "CNet News is reporting that the US Secret Service in conjunction with authorities in six foreign countries have arrested 28 people in the last 48 hours on charges of identity theft, computer fraud, credit card fraud and conspiracy. Dubbed Operation Firewall, the Secret Service identified a group of people who stole over 1.7 million credit card numbers as well as a passport-forging facility in Bulgaria. The investigation started in July 2003 when the Secret Service began investigating an unspecified financial crime. They identified the website Shadowcrew.com whose members traded tutorials and information about identity theft and forgery and exchanged sensitive personal and financial information. The Shadowcrew website has since undergone a makeover thanks to the Secret Service. A press release about the operation can also be found on their website."

Comments

This is pretty big!

[Seventh Magpie]

Hey this is the kind of case law enforcement needs. Take down the big boys. As much as some of you like to flame the USSS, you gotta give them credit for this one!

ShadowCrew "Joe Jobs"

[alanw]

Shadowcrew has its very own entry in the Snopes Urban legends page, after being the subject of "Joe-Job" e-mails claiming that "your credit card has been charged $149.95 for child pornography"

One can only wonder who was responsible. A rival group of fraudsters perhaps, or someone trying to bring them into further disrepute?

Re:Jurisdiction

[tristan-jt2]

I'm not a US citizen, so I may well be mistaken, but the USSS is part of the Department of Treasury. One of their better known mission is to deal with couterfeit money (beside of protecting the POTUS).

Since ID theft has the potential of screwing up the financial system in a rather major way, I'm not too surprised they got involved on that case.

Anyway, the idea of "defacing" the site was bloddy brilliant. It gives the strong message that the Law can get to the frauders level in order to catch them. I'm pretty sure the message got through to a few people in a much stronger way than a simple press release would have.

Re:Jurisdiction

[bani]

the secret service investigate and prosecute forgery. read it on their web site:

http://www.secretservice.gov/investigations.shtm l

"The Secret Service was established as a law enforcement agency in 1865. While most people associate the Secret Service with Presidential protection, our original mandate was to investigate the counterfeiting of U.S. currency--which we still do . Today our primary investigative mission is to safeguard the payment and financial systems of the United States. This has been historically accomplished through the enforcement of the counterfeiting statutes to preserve the integrity of United States currency, coin and financial obligations. Since 1984, our investigative responsibilities have expanded to include crimes that involve financial institution fraud, computer and telecommunications fraud, false identification documents, access device fraud, advance fee fraud, electronic funds transfers, and money laundering as it relates to our core violations."

Re:Not very subtle! :)

[balster neb]

The site seems to be slashdotted or something (doesn't load). Mirrordot to the rescue:
http://www.mirrordot.com/stories/837e41d1433a26838 15e933bda4b46bd/index.html.

And as for the background sound, the site uses the nonstandard bgsound tag, which will work in IE. It's the theme from Mission: Impossible.

Classic stuff.

Re:Note to self

[Celvin]

What do you expect to happen if you run imgoingtokillthepresident.com?

Well, actually the Norwegian rap-group "Gatas Parlament" (The parliament of the streets) recently put up this page. It's in norwegian, but I really don't think anyone needs a translation.

I doubt these guys will ever be going to the US...

(For the reccord: I don't think this is a good joke)

Want to see what it looked like before?

[Foresto]

I think the site is now slashdotted, but the wayback machine reveals a bit of what it used to look like.

Shadowcrew.com

[Anonymous Coward]

It is still possible to check out the genuine version of this site via http://web.archive.org/web/20020903220621/http://s hadowcrew.com/

Re:We need more action on identity theft

[Proteus]

Identity theft should be a capital offense. Life sentences should be the minimum punishment.

Your so-called "Identity Theft" is actually something that's been around for a long time: fraud. In this case, financial fraud by impersonating another person.

Fraud already carries some serious penalties -- the new wave of fraud has more to do with the difficulty of tracing someone who obtains personal information for the purposes of fraud using the Internet. We now have people capable of defrauding others from distant countries. I think we're much better off spending time and money on improving forensic abilities, requiring creditors and vendors accepting credit to implement better security measures, and educating consumers about how they can protect themselves.

The punishment for identity fraud should be:

• Restitution of funds gaind by fraud, by 200% (defraud me of $6000, pay me $12000 back)
  
• Required to contact defrauded creditors, with a monitoring justice agent, and clear the accounts
  
• Denied credit for a term of 20 years
  
• For "grand" fraud (over $20000), some prison time
  
• Fines constituting 20% of funds defrauded, the majority of which enforcment agencies can keep.
  

Those might help agencies develop better security and forensics, which leads to more criminals being caught. When people are actually getting caught, then the penalties are actually effective deterrents.

Re:We need more action on identity theft

[Anonymous Coward]

Identity theft can destroy people, literally.

You mean metaphorically, not literally.