20 Oct
Credit Card Fraud Sting Nets 58 Arrests
The Dark Market forum was just another good place for selling and trading credit cards. Thats the forum members thought. In reality, it was a sting operation run jointly by the FBI, the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and the National Cyber Forensics Training Alliance (NCFTA.)
According to some news reports, it might still be in operation were it not for the alert from one of it’s members saying that the forum administrator had logged in from an IP address that was assigned to NCFTA.
The site, which ran from 2006, boasted over 2500 members. The FBI claims that in addition to the 58 arrests, other leads are being followed and they saved an estimated USD $70 million in losses.
Kudos to Agent Mularski. Well done.
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While I think this is marvellous news, doesn't this kind of technique come under the heading of "Entrapment" in which case it would be illegal?
October 20th, 2008 at 8:13 am@ Adrian:
It would be (and probably will be) looked at on a case by case basis, but generally no, it is not entrapment.
Yes, the forum was set up to catch bad guys but unless the forum user was actually tricked or coerced into signing up and then coerced into buying or selling, there would be no entrapment. Entrapment attaches when law enforcement somehow manipulates the defendant into doing something that (s)he would not have done without the manipulation.
October 20th, 2008 at 10:43 amI'm amazed that the NCFTA did not do a better job of hiding the true ownership of their IP address. Hopefully, they will learn from this. I know when local police departments do a fence operation, they usually take extreme measures to hide the connection to the local police department.
October 20th, 2008 at 11:40 am@ Karina:
I have a bit of a problem with that myself. I only saw that information in two reports out of several. On the other hand, a two year sting with 58 arrests is a pretty good haul. Remember that there's an excellent probability that once the first arrest is made, the operation is compromised. I becomes a matter of how long you really want the thing to continue without making the busts.
October 20th, 2008 at 11:50 am