June 19th, 2007
Online crime unit boasts its 1,000,000th crime report
It’s some sort of dubious milestone - the US Internet Crime Complaint Center (or IC3) has fielded its millionth complaint. Ars Technica reports that IC3, founded as a clearing house to help online crime victims find the appropriate law enforcement agency, is doing a brisk business these days.
The IC3 is a joint project of the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center. Since many Internet crimes cross state and national borders, investigating these crimes can be quite complicated, involving many different agencies, jurisdictions and even countries. (See, for instance, the bust of the international live kiddie porn chatroom.)
Founded in 2000, the IC3 was originally intended as a fraud unit, but has since expanded into intellectual property disputes, hacking and computer intrusions, economic espionage, online extortion, money laundering and identity theft. Online auction fraud and scams comprise the majority of the complaints received. The IC3 estimates total losses in the cases they’ve handled to be nearly $650 million.
In addition to directing individuals and law enforcement to appropriate agencies, IC3 also allows online complaint filing and has educational tips and how to avoid becoming a victim of internet scams.
