INTERNET CRIME
A Look at Growing Trends
04/07/06
On 4/6, top FBI exec Chris Swecker was one
of a series of witnesses to
testify at a House Energy and Commerce Committee
hearing on the sexual exploitation of children
over the Internet...and what’s being
done about it.
At
nearly exactly the same time, the
Internet Crime
Complaint Center, or IC3—a partnership of the FBI and the
National White Collar Crime Center—released
its
annual statistics on Internet Crime.
Coincidence? Actually,
yes. But although Swecker’s statement
and IC3's report cover different aspects
of the issue, both are aimed at one thing:
providing the latest insights into the
nature and extent of Internet-based crime...and
what the FBI and its partners are doing
to curtail it.
One
thing’s for sure: the numbers are
up, in a big way. The IC3 says
that the volume of complaints it received
online in 2005 (231,493, to be exact)
and the total dollar losses arising from
referred cases (more than $183 million)
are at all-time highs. More complaints
were filed in the final three months
of 2005 than in any other quarter in
the past six years. While Internet auction
fraud was again the most reported offense,
IC3 says that complaints about phishing,
spoofing, and spam all increased during
the year.
We encourage you to
read
the full report for all the telling
details.
And
what about the sexual exploitation of
children via the Internet? Same
story. Mr. Swecker said our Innocent
Images program dedicated
to stopping online child predators has
grown “exponentially,” with
our caseload rising over two thousand percent,
from 113 investigations in 1996 to 2,500
in 2005. The Cyber
tipline
operated by the National Center for Missing
and Exploited Children, the FBI, and other
partners has also seen a 400 percent growth
in reports filed in its eight years of
operation.
What’s
the FBI doing to combat such trends? Quite
a bit...and in close cooperation with partners
nationally and internationally. Mr. Swecker
talks about how our agents now work side-by-side
with officers from around the world to
stop the online sexual abuse of children;
how we’ve stationed six FBI agents
and staff full time at the National Center
for Missing and Exploited Children; and
how we’ve teamed up with various
partners to address the growing problem
of child prostitution through the Innocence
Lost National Initiative.
And the IC3 report cites examples of cases
where online complaints it has received
and referred have ended up in catching
cyber criminals across the globe.
You
can help—by not becoming a victim
in the first place. Please take advantage
of many resources we offer to protect yourself
and your loved ones from such crimes. The
IC3 report, for example, has a list of “best
practices to prevent Internet crime.” You
can find additional information on our Be
Crime Smart website.
And visit our Innocent
Images
for a range of advice and suggestions on
how to protect your kids from sexual predators
in cyberspace.
Resources: Chris
Swecker’s Testimony |
2005 Internet Crime Report
