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 10/9/2004 Operation targeting online crime seen as "most successful"
September 10, 2004
The US Department of Justice last month has announced the arrests of more than 150 individuals in a nationwide law enforcement effort to crack down on card crime, identity theft and phishing scams.
The action, dubbed Operation Web Snare, led to more than 160 investigations over a three month period between June and August. Investigators say they have identified more than 150,000 victims with estimated losses of more than $215 million.
Operation Web Snare was the largest and most successful collaborative law-enforcement operation ever conducted to prosecute online fraud, stop identity theft, and prevent other computer-related crimes.
The cases brought in this operation span many of the most significant forms of computer-related crime:
major online-fraud schemes, some defrauding tens of thousands of victims; online identity theft, such as "phishing"- the soliciting of Internet users for their personal and financial data, using e-mails and websites falsely representing that they are from legitimate banks and companies. US Attorney General John Ashcroft estimates that identity theft alone costs US businesses over $50 billion each year. He says: "When you have $50 billion worth of damage being done to the economy of the United States of America, then it deserves some of our attention." Operation also embraced computer hacking and intellectual property crimes such as selling counterfeit software.
In one example, John Ashcroft stated that as a result of Operation Web Snare, a federal grand jury in Kansas City returned an indictment charging five individuals with conspiracy to commit identity theft, access-device fraud, and unlawful access of a protected computer. According to the indictment Ganiyat Ishola stole several pages from an employee roster with the Social Security numbers of her coworkers. Ishola gave the information to her boyfriend Soji Olowokandi. That information was then taken to Chicago where it was used by several members of the alleged conspiracy to apply for credit cards.
He added: "In Operation Web Snare, we also saw firsthand the increased use of the Internet to damage rival businesses and communicate threats for commercial advantage. In Los Angeles, the CEO of a communications company and five other individuals were charged yesterday for allegedly using "denial of service" attacks against their online competitors in order to reap commercial advantage. According to the charges filed yesterday, the CEO and a business partner allegedly hired and used computer hackers in Arizona, Louisiana, Ohio, and the United Kingdom to attack the websites of multiple competitors. The hackers' tactics allegedly included targeting the victims' websites and an Internet service provider. These attacks reportedly cost the competitors more than $2 million in lost revenue and associated costs. In addition to disrupting the Internet service provider, the attack also disrupted the websites of the United States Department of Homeland Security and Internet retailer Amazon.com".
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