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US Failing To Prosecute Online Criminals

Posted by samzenpus on from the get-out-of-jail-free dept.

Ashlynne9423 writes "A report by the Center for American Progress and the Center for Democracy and Technology has found there is too little action being taken against online criminals, despite rising consumer concern about online safety. The report found that state officials were spending only 40 per cent of case time investigating online fraudsters, preferring instead to concentrate on higher profile solicitation and pornography cases."

6 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Well duh by daveatneowindotnet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's easier to drop the hammer on college kids for downloading media online then it is to hunt down people exploiting masses of small phish. Besides IAAs have deeper pockets and are much more influencial than a amorphous blob of (unknown) online victims.

  2. Look on the bright side! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Funny

    If it were possible to smoke pot on the internet(thc/ip?) we would be wasting most of our time prosecuting that.

  3. Not just online... by Firethorn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you look at law enforcement in general, and it's not just a US problem, petty crime has a pretty bad interest by police period.

    If a citizen isn't essentially holding the criminal for police to arrive(like in the case of shoplifting), or the crime happens in front of the officer, if it's not violent they really don't do much.

    So things like car theft, burglary of unoccupied homes, etc... All low priority. Heck, I've heard of burlary rings that don't even care of a house is alarmed - police response time is so slow that they have time to steal everything they want and leave before the police arrive. One was even spoofing the alarm people, delaying things even more.

    This, of coures, irks the heck out of me because I hate to see crime pay, and effective law enforcement is a good way to ensure that it doesn't. Every crime that 'pays off' encourages them in the future.

    --
    I don't read AC A human right
    1. Re:Not just online... by sumdumass · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Your point on a local pawn shop is something that struck a nerve with me. I had a laptop and a gun among other things stolen from a van. There are 5 pawn shops in the county and the cops only checked the ones within the city limits. In my state, there is a pawn card submitted to the police detailing the pawned item and the identity of whoever sold/pawned it. But there is no central database or anything making sure that any serial numbers would be accurate or anything.

      I actually found my gun, a Dan Wesson .357 magnum sitting in a pawn show just outside the city limits and called the sheriff which should have also had a copy of the theft report. Evidently, the pawn shop entered the serial number wrong on accident but I have my suspicions on that. When I was phoning the sheriff the clerk attempted to take the gun into the back room to make it disappear as if he knew it was stolen. I practically got into a fight with him to keep it out in the open until the law could show up. They ran the numbers and I got it back after they did ballistics tests on it for some reason. The cop wasn't interested in the fact that they didn't report the correct serial number or that the clerk was attempting to remove the gun.

      I later found some 2 way FRS radios in a pawnshop inside the city limits that looked like mine. I purchased them as a replacement only to find that they were mine when I was recording the serial numbers. They claimed they did a merchandise swap with the other pawn shop to keep fresh martial in stock. Again, the cop wasn't interested in any details. I went to the state AGs office which lit some fires under the right asses someone from the state was investigating the claims. About 4 months later, My laptop was returned in a broken and unrepairable state- the pawn shop listed the serial number on the battery to get around any obvious number. Evidently, the clerk was buying known stolen merchandise and fudging around with the numbers in order to prevent being discovered. They busted around 10 other people who were stealing the things.

      Anyways, all this was possible because the local cops didn't go beyond "local" and didn't do anything more then what was absolutely necessary to get their salary. Oh.. and the person who stole the gun and laptop, they got busted for "possession of stolen property" instead of theft or anything like that. One served 6 months, the other had time served waiting for trial and they both got 5 years probation.

      Your right, there should be ways to catch these people. But at least in my experience, they assign those to the least productive member of the force. For all I know, that cop could have been in on the burglary ring and fencing operation but I'm just throwing that out with no proof or anything. I'm Just talking from a gut feeling on how this could happen.

  4. Probably because... by rgviza · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...most incidences of online theft are under the magical felony number which makes an individual counts of fraud usually not worth pursuing.

    I've had my ID stolen and used to exploit Household Bank's lax policies no fewer than 3 times by the same person, from the same address, in Chicago.

    Each time the scumbag ran up just about $4900 then stopped using the account. At $5k it's a felony. They don't even bother sending the police to the guys shipping address because it's not enough for them to get a good case. I expect the next collection call any day now (looks at watch)... You'd think they'd flag my social security number and not give accounts to "me" any more. No they just hand out their money like it ain't no thang.

    The people running that bank and working there are scumbags too. The last time around, Household's collector told my wife that I'm having an affair with someone in Chicago. Funny, since I've never been there and I'm home every night, in Maryland, where I live. My wife thought it was hilarious.

    Oh well, it's their money I guess. It's kind of a pain in the ass when it happens, but I just tell them "Look you been robbed, again, by the same guy. You might want to flag my social security number and not give accounts to people using my information". Then I call the credit bureau, report the fraud and they take it off my report.

    It's the banks causing the problem, not the police. The bank people are stupid. The retail people don't even bother asking for ID. I still can't believe the government is bailing banks out and preventing natural selection from doing it's thing.

    This country's laws are written to promote theft and fraud, and our government supports and endorses stupidity. Fraud and socialism is what this country is all about.

    -Viz

    --
    Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
  5. I've been waiting for a story like this... by barnyjr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm a cyber/white collar crimes detective for a medium-sized agency. There are so many problems with online crimes right now that I don't even know where to start. But one of the most important things is that people realize some of the problems we face...

    1) I know it's popular (especially on slashdot) to bitch about how "Big Brother" is always trying to violate your civil rights for fun. But I will tell you that the red tape is one of the biggest factors in why a lot of online crimes don't get solved. For nearly every online crime, the first step is sending out subpoenas to every company involved. In a fraud case, this means: banks and the company where the order took place. Then once you get those returns, you have to subpoena the ISP to find out what the physical address is. All of these companies take anywhere from a week to 3 months to get you the information back.

    2) Once you get all your basic background work on the case done, now you have to physically drive to the address where the activity took place. You want to know what happens to 90% of my cases at the point? Dead end. The idiot has an unsecured wireless router, which means that anyone could have perpetrated the crime. And of course, anyone that is dumb enough to leave their wireless network wide open isn't smart enough to have turned on logging in their router (which is off by default in almost all routers).

    3) OK so now what. No we try to look at where the item was shipped, assuming it was an online purchase. Guess what? Nobody ships it to their home address. They ship it to a neighbors, or an abandoned house down the street, or one of the thousands of "work from home repackaging" businesses. OK, so do I go to a judge and try to get a search warrant to search a house where a package was delivered just on the off chance that they were stupid enough to use their real address? NO I can't! Judges want more hard evidence than that.

    4) In non-purchase fraud cases (i.e. a person is transferring money around), we follow the money trail just like we do with any other financial crime. Guess where I dead-end here? Stored Value Cards. Get one from overseas, and now they don't have to comply with my subpoena. Dead in the water again.

    OK so those are some of the issues in investigating online crimes, specifically fraud cases. Wanna know what the biggest issue is after all of that? I just spent about 30 man-hours investigating that $500 fraud case. I contact the victim to let them know what's going on. They've already been reimbursed by the bank simply by making their initial police report. The bank doesn't give a shit because $500 is nothing to them and they get to turn it in to insurance as a loss.

    These are some of the reasons that online crimes aren't getting solved. For every one that I make an arrest on, I have 10 that I've dead-ended on. Unless the credit card companies and banks decide to take a stand and make their financial methods more secured, they're going to continue losing money. So the original story says that only 40% of time is being spend on fraud cases. Yeah that's probably about right. Kiddy porn and child solicitation cases may not seem as serious to some people, but they're so much more cut and dry. That's like saying that more robberies are solved than burglaries... they're 2 entirely different crimes with different sets of parameters.