INTERNET CRIME
How Complaints
Become Cases
12/22/06
The FBI in Los Angeles last week announced
it opened an investigation to determine who
hacked into a restricted database at the University
of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) that held
the names and personal information of some
800,000 students, faculty, and alumni. Anyone
who thought they had been further victimized
as a result of the breach was encouraged to
contact the Internet Crime Complaint Center
(IC3).
To
understand why IC3 was brought into the picture
in this case, it helps to see how the program
works.
The
IC3 was founded six years ago as a partnership
between the FBI and the National White Collar
Crime Center (NW3C). The NW3C is a nonprofit
organization which assists state and local
law enforcement in fighting cyber and economic
crime. The IC3's aim is to be a central repository
and analytical resource addressing the full
spectrum of Internet-related crime complaints
such as hacks, auction scams, identity theft,
etc.
Complaints
submitted through IC3's website, www.ic3.gov,
are reviewed by FBI and NW3C analysts and
analyzed to identify leads and patterns from
the hundreds of complaints that are received
daily. The IC3 then refers the complaints,
along with their analyses, to FBI field offices
or other federal, state, and local law enforcement
agencies. It's there that investigators determine
whether or not to open a case. Last year,
IC3 referred 97,076 fraud complaintswhich
equated to $183 million in lossesfor
potential investigations.
Supervisory
Special Agent (SSA) Kim Richmond, who is assigned
to the FBI Cyber Division's IC3 unit in Fairmont,
West Virginia, described the IC3 as a clearinghouse
for complaints.
The
sheer volume of complaints231,493 last
year aloneenables IC3 analysts to look
for links and patterns, which can lead to
stronger cases and help zero in on the major
sources of criminal activity. In one case
referred by the IC3 and investigated by the
U.S. Postal Inspection Service, a California
man who was offering expensive tickets to
sporting events through an online auctionthen
not delivering the ticketswas arrested
on 12 counts of mail fraud and faces up to
20 years in prison if convicted.
The
IC3
2005 Internet Crime Report revealed that
auction fraud and non-delivery of goods accounted
for more than three-quarters of complaints
in 2005. Nigerian Letter scamswhere
individuals posing as foreign government officials
ask for your help placing large sums of money
in overseas bank accountscost complainants
the most money last year, an average of $5,000
apiece. Most of those who submitted complaints
to IC3, however, lost less than $1,000 each
in scams in 2005.
In
the case of suspected identity theft and potential
loss of personal data, such as the FBI investigation
in the UCLA hack, the IC3 recommends the following
steps: