Surrounded by more than $1 million in confiscated jewelry, Attorney General Kamala Harris unveiled a new statewide cybercrime unit in Silicon Valley on Tuesday aimed at investigating and prosecuting such misdeeds as the ATM-skimming scheme that recently fleeced more than 500 Lucky supermarket customers.
Harris said the "eCrime unit" will provide another layer of much-needed protection for consumers and businesses in the Golden State. Currently, five regional task forces and a lab overseen by the FBI also pursue cyber criminals.
The new unit's 20 state investigators and prosecutors will work with local law enforcement to fight five categories of crimes involving electronic devices or networks -- child exploitation, Internet fraud, the theft of computer components and services, intellectual property crimes and identity theft. About 1 million Californians annually are victims of identity theft -- amounting to $46 million in losses last year alone.
Many cybercrimes occur in several jurisdictions or remotely by cloud, making it difficult or impossible for local authorities to prosecute. State prosecutors, on the other hand, are empowered to take on such multijurisdictional cases.
"I am creating the eCrime unit so that California can be a leader in using innovative law enforcement techniques to target criminals," said Harris, who spoke at the crime lab on Hedding Street in San Jose run by the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office.
Other large states have similar units, including Florida and Illinois, according to the National Association of Attorneys General, but many focus on a relatively narrow spectrum of crimes, including child molestation and pornography.
The launch drew praise from Stuart McClure, worldwide chief technology officer for McAfee, a leading computer security firm based in Santa Clara.
"I hope the world is watching because this is what we need to do more of," he said.
McClure said he's frustrated by the lack of technical know-how at many law enforcement agencies throughout the world, as well as by the complacency of others, who don't realize what a big threat cybercrime presents. A smattering of states in the U.S. "get it," in particular Maryland, which he said has a unit somewhat like the one Harris has created.
Harris said some government offices in California still are lagging technologically. As recently as 2004, two-thirds of San Francisco's prosecutors didn't have email, she said. The situation reminds her of law enforcement's initial struggle to accept DNA testing, now an invaluable tool.
So Harris also is opening a tech center in Fresno to train and assist law enforcement authorities with high-tech investigations, including how to retrieve evidence from smartphones, and use GPS to determine where and when a cellphone photo was taken.
In the Bay Area, Harris' unit is already prosecuting a case solved in April by the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team, known as REACT, under the supervision of District Attorney Jeff Rosen. The task force recovered $36 million worth of chips manufactured by Intel and stolen at gunpoint from a Fremont semiconductor company. Authorities arrested several men, who face a maximum of life in prison if convicted of the charges, including armed robbery and kidnapping for robbery.
"Our cooperation has flourished," Rosen said at the news conference also attended by Assemblywoman Nora Campos, D-San Jose.
The unit now has 20 active cases and an additional 17 cases under investigation. Earlier this month, it filed felony charges against Chen Zhang in San Joaquin Superior Court, including possession of unauthorized and counterfeit jewelry from five different companies. Harris' investigators seized $1.5 million worth of jewelry, which was on display Tuesday at her San Jose news conference.
The unit also is prosecuting several defendants accused of running an identity-theft scam at ATM vestibules across seven counties.
Source:- Mercurynews
