Law Enforcement Archives

Cyber Crime: The Rise of Sextortion in Video Games & Chatrooms

Sexual predators will use any means available to lure innocent kids into doing what they want. The scary part is that they do their homework first. The FBI reported about a man recently, in his 40’s, who actually worked as a youth Pastor to learn how kids talked and interacted with each other. Next he created fake social media profiles to lure boys to take videos of themselves. He was caught and is now in jail.

Video games is another avenue with which predators attempt to communicate with kids and it is perhaps the most dangerous. The reason for this is because parents don’t always understand the nature of the video games their kids are playing. This puts them at a disadvantage and is one reason why the FBI started a school campaign on the dangers of talking to strangers online.

So, what resources are out there to help educate parents and educators help prevent this crime? One great resource we can recommend is Thorn.

Thorn was born in 2012 by Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore. When they learned about sex trafficking in Cambodia, they started to dig deeper. Its then that they realized it was happening in the US as well.

Today, Thorn is thriving with a lot of wonderful partners and continued education and promotion.

Facebook has adopted Thorn, and created The Stop Sextortion Hub as an additional resource for people. On this site, Facebook offers a great selection of information.

Meet the staff at Thorn and reach out to them if you are interested in getting involved.

Our success is measured by how many children we’ve helped save, how many cases we’ve contributed to solving and how much harm we’ve prevented. Through focused and persistent effort, we can stop online child sexual abuse.”
From: About us on www.thorn.com

If you are wondering who is most vulnerable, read “Online Predators: What Every Parent Should Know” . Many times parents think that kids are in their room, in their home, playing video games and they are safe. However, there are warning signs parents need to know.

Resources You Need to Know
Chatrooms Community by Talk With Stranger is like a social network of strangers. Discuss topics, follow people, chat with people, make friends & share everything for free! We have 1000s of online users waiting to chat from every corner of the world.

Discord is a proprietary freeware VoIP application and digital distribution platform designed for video gaming communities, that specializes in text, image, video and audio communication between users in a chat channel. Discord runs on Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Linux, and in web browsers.

If you are reading this blog, please share with parents and people who can make a difference. Education is key to stopping these predators.

The Dark Side of Facebook

Facebook is a place for online predators to stalk, engage and eventually lure an innocent kid to meet up in person. We have heard these stories too many times.
In this month’s newsletter, we want to cover some areas you may not be aware of, things that Facebook doesn’t really speak publicly about.

Facebook Groups Used To “Friend” Kids: When a person creates a Facebook Group, they have the choice of making it public or private. Facebook Groups can house all kinds of crime from fraud to drugs to sex trafficking. Kids who have a low self esteem or don’t have many friends are the ones who are the most targeted because of their vulnerability. They then get lured in by pimps offering them all kinds of fun and/or material things. Facebook has had numerous lawsuits filed against them over the years because of this. Newsweek published an article on one such case. A child of 12 years old was supposedly groomed online (in social media) for over a year. Facebook now has a very clear policy for this, with excellent resources in case anyone runs across a tip on a victim.

Photos Used For Extortion: A scammer can potentially sift through photos on Facebook, capture and download them and then conduct a reverse image scan to see if any married people are on any dating or swinger sites. They then can use it for blackmail.

Friend Requests: Romance scams are on the rise. Friend requests come in from a handsome man or pretty woman and many people will say yes to the request. Sometimes it may show that he or she is friends with some of the people they know, which makes it all seem more believable. Next comes the “online courting” stage and pretty soon they are asking for money. Catfishers set up elaborate fake profiles to make them appear to be real which hooks someone looking for love online.

Facebook Fraud: Targeting young women, a scammer once again took Facebook images of a victim and then created a post that said she was missing. Then 20 of her friends were duplicated and her “missing’ post was shared on all of their fake profile timelines. The scammers then blocked the real Facebook profiles so the victims couldn’t even see the fake profile of themselves.

How Gangs use Social Media

Social media is often used to paint yourself in a different light…it can make you seem more popular, more successful, and happier than you really are. In other words, you can take on any persona you want, and quickly develop a following of fans who want to be just like you.

So it’s no surprise that gangs use social media to recruit new members and intimidate rival groups. In the view of police officials, today’s gang violence is largely fueled by social media, which is used to taunt and threaten rivals, or the result of beefs that can span years, involving not just gang members, but their families and friends, as well.

Police have tried different strategies for reducing the violence, from monitoring gang members’ online activity to visiting the homes of friends of homicide victims to talk them out of seeking retribution.

The ever-expanding reliance on social media has for gang-related criminal activity has law enforcement scrambling to stay ahead of emerging trends and platforms. “If your law enforcement agency has yet to incorporate social media investigations as a routine step during your investigative process, your agency is falling behind and missing out on a gold mine of intelligence gathering,” according to Aaron Concepcion, a correctional sergeant in New York with 15 years of service, five of which as the head gang investigator assigned to an intelligence center.

SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS

Over the past 20 years there has been an increase in the use of social media by street gangs. According to the National Gang Investigators Association, the most popular platforms are Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Google, Flickr, WhatsApp and kik.

It’s now called “cyberbanging” and gangs use the broad reach of social media to recruit new members, intimidate rivals, promote criminal activity, advertise their brand, communicate between members, brag about accomplishment to validate street credibility/dominance, and antagonize rivals.

In gang-plagued Chicago, Lamanta Reese, 19, was gunned down in May 2017 after posting a YouTube video disparaging a rival gang, which included a possibly misconstrued emoji that his shooter believed was an insult against his mother.

The Mexican cartels, specifically Los Zetas, have tracked down and murdered at least four bloggers posting opposition. This includes a 39-year-old woman who was decapitated and two men hanged from an overpass with a sign saying, “This is going to happen to all internet snitches. Pay attention, I’m watching you!”

ONLINE TOOLS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT

Because of the increased use of social media, law enforcement is stepping up its game in an effort to conduct surveillance and interdiction operations. The new generation of tech-savvy millennials joining the ranks of law enforcement are more in tune with social media trends. Concepcion says he has utilized a wide variety of online tools: “There’s no one-stop-shop or sole technique for mining information online. You might find success with a particular technique on one case, and then find it unsuccessful on another,” he said.

“You would be surprised at the amount of information you can acquire by simply running a name on Pipl.com,” said Concepcion. While most gang members rarely use their real name on social media, searching the profiles of their family, friends and visitors who are less cautious often leads directly to the suspect or provides valuable intelligence.

SOCIAL MEDIA SURVEILLANCE

There is no shortage of operational successes utilizing strategic social media monitoring. In June 2014, NYPD used 1 million Facebook posts in its largest recorded gang raid when officers stormed the General Ulysses S. Grant and Manhattanville housing projects in West Harlem, arresting 40 suspects charged with crimes including murder, assault, and conspiracy in a 145-count indictment.

Another successful case comes from San Diego, California, where members of the West Coast Crips were arrested after some posted selfies that were taken at murder scenes to Facebook; 56 gang members were charged with racketeering and conspiracy to distribute drugs and guns.

“Mining social media may not always hand you a home run like the above cases, but it can provide you with pieces of the puzzle, like a photo for facial recognition, gang affiliations, associations or current locations,” said Concepcion.

Concepcion suggests departments choose at least two officers and begin sending them for training. Next, start searching for suspects they’re already familiar with and continue mining for information. “If there is a particular gang in your area, I’d research and decipher their lingo, as well as read through their lessons if possible,” he said. “You can execute a simple hashtag search on google or Instagram using the same lingo such as #MS13 #BlazingBilly.”

Create files and utilize programs like the snipping tool that comes with most Windows-based computers, and take screen shots as you go. Using the snipping tool also saves the date and time stamps your activity. There is no doubt you will come across pages with photos of familiar suspects, guns and drugs. Your biggest issue will not be finding the activity, but organizing the information and identifying the suspects.

2019 Facebook Search Tips For Social Media Investigations

Social Media Investigations has been known to take an unbelievable amount of your time or that of an employee. Facebook searching is one of the areas that can be the most confusing but can harvest some of the best results. Either way, it can cost you money and you may not even reap the rewards of the time spent.

A good Social Media Investigation Strategy begins with a thorough understanding of each of the platforms you are using in your research. “You don’t know what you don’t know”, sort of thing. 2019 will be the year that goes down in history as the year of privacy, which makes social media investigations even more difficult, but not impossible.

One of the very first things to take a look at when beginning to use a social platform for search purposes, is their privacy settings. This way you know ahead of time exactly what you are up against. In this post, we are going to go over two privacy areas that often get overlooked.

Facebook Minor Privacy

Minor privacy in Facebook is taken very seriously, as it should. Take a look at the privacy clearly stated in Facebook:

Social Media Investigations — Facebook Minor Policy

While searching for a Minor in Facebook is allowed, you may not be privy to the type of information you are looking for. Today’s Tweens and Teens are very good at hiding in social media, which makes our jobs even harder.

Facebook General Privacy

Who can look you up using the phone number provided?

This is quite specific and one you may not have even realized existed. When we think about privacy settings, we think about a few questions to answer and it’s done! Not so with Facebook as you can see. This is where a lot of confusion can come in when it comes to mining social media. Any person may have certain aspects of their profile public, while others are set to private.

Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile?

Can’t find the social media profile in a Google search? This may be the reason why. Searching in Facebook is key to overcome this setting. Search in a number of ways – think outside the box.

So, how do you know if your person of interest has these privacy settings in place ? You won’t ever know. You just have to find ways to work around it.

Be sure to subscribe to this blog to stay up to date about the details of social media investigation that can save you time and money.

Social Media Scams: 2019 Update

It seems the internet will never be completely free of scams, fake ads, and outlandish claims by companies and the products they sell. And 2019 is proving to be no different. Here’s the latest on what to look out for when browsing the web, scrolling your Facebook news feed, and clicking on those enticing ads.

1) Although Facebook has pledged to get tough on scammers, millions of users are still being targeted by fraudsters. Harry Rose, editor of Which? magazine, said: “Facebook has promised to tackle scams head-on so we’re disappointed that it took them a full 24 hours to remove our falsified ad, despite many comments flagging that it was fake.” Facebook and other tech companies urgently need to put systems in place to ensure their millions of users are protected from scams that could see them conned out of substantial sums.” A Facebook spokesman said: “We are taking action to stop fraud wherever it appears, and will continue to adapt to the increasingly sophisticated techniques fraudsters use to con people.

Just remember the old adage, if it seems too good to be true it probably is. And follow these rules:

• If an ad is endorsed by a celebrity, do not assume it is genuine.
• Never use a financial service advertised on social media without checking their background.
• Avoid filling out quizzes or surveys that ask you for personal details. They could be used to commit ID fraud, or target you with follow-up scams.
• Do not click, like or share posts you are unsure of. Opening links or downloading attachments could risk installing a virus on your computer.
• Be wary of unusual messages from friends if they contain links to “too good-to-be-true” offers or ask for money – even if the message has been sent via Facebook Messenger. A change in your friend’s style of writing is also a likely sign that it’s not them. Always contact your friend privately to check.
• Check your privacy settings and limit what is publicly visible. Facebook sets your friends list to “public” by default. So if a scammer creates a convincing copy of your account, it’s easier for them to target people on your friends list. Use Facebook’s privacy settings to change it to private or “friends only” instead.
• If you spot a suspicious post on Facebook, report it. Click on the three dots in the top right hand corner of the post and select “Give feedback”.

2) Because Millennials are constantly on social media, it provides the perfect scenario for scammers and fraudulent activity. Recently, Better Business Bureau Northwest + Pacific has seen a rise of scam activity occurring on Snapchat. The scheme targets young adults with an offer to make money through a “sponsorship” or “advertising opportunity.” They instruct the person to send money via gift cards to pay for “advertising” and then scammers request account login information to get on Snapchat and invite that person’s friends to be part of this “opportunity” and keep the scheme going. The victim’s login information is changed so they cannot login to stop it or warn others, leaving the scammer in control of the account until Snapchat is notified.

BBB has already identified these types of scams happening in Texas, Louisiana, South Carolina and New York. Recently the Police Department in Boise, Idaho reported seeing it as well, with a local victim losing thousands of dollars. Because 71% of Snapchat users are between ages 18-29, it’s easy to see why so many young consumers might fall for it.

Anytime someone asks for your login information and/or payment via gift card, it’s a scam. Block that user, delete the message, and report them.
3) The last scam targets users on the other end of the age spectrum. The “Grandparent Scam” has been around for years, but variations keep popping and duping thousands of consumers every year. In 2018, an estimated $1.48 billion was reported stolen, with those over the age of 70 suffering the highest average losses, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

Typically, the victim receives a frantic phone call from a scammer posing as a grandchild or other family member. The “grandchild” explains that he or she is in some kind of trouble and needs help. The “grandchild” pleads to not to tell his or her parents and asks that they wire thousands of dollars for reasons such as posting bail, repairing a car, covering lawyer’s fees or even paying hospital bills. The caller is counting on an instant reaction from the victim by playing the sympathy card.
What you need to do first is verify the caller. Ask a personal question that only your grandchild or family member would know the answer to. Tell them you’ll call back and ask for a number; then contact your grandchild or another family member to determine whether or not the call is legitimate and confirm the whereabouts of the grandchild.
Never send money through wire transfer or other “sketchy” methods, especially to locations overseas. That is a serious red flag. Scammers also commonly use payment via prepaid card or gift cards.
If you do fall victim to the “Grandparent Scam”, report the incident immediately to the BBB Scam Tracker and local police.