Federal Bureau of Investigation - FBI

Indianapolis Man Sentenced in Embezzlement Scheme

kpaul.mallasch — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 01:45:45 -0800

INDIANAPOLIS, IN - Timothy M. Morrison, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, announced that Robert Rosenberg, 41, Indianapolis, Indiana, was sentenced to 16 months imprisonment today by U.S. District Chief Judge David F. Hamilton following his guilty plea to wire fraud. This case was the result of a investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Rosenberg was employed as a purchasing manager at a Sealed Air Corp. manufacturing facility in Indianapolis since around 2001. Sealed Air makes commercial packing materials, such as foam boards. ROSENBERG’s duties including buying routine items for the facility. He was given a corporate credit card for work-related purchases and had a discretionary limit up to $4,000 per transaction and $40,000 per month he could charge without prior approval.

Beginning around October 2003, ROSENBERG began using his corporate credit card for personal purchases. Items would be delivered to the plant and he would pick them up at the loading dock. He continued this scheme through October 2007 when the corporation identified suspicious charges attributable to Rosenberg and confronted him.

Rosenberg immediately quit his employment. Audits of all of Rosenberg’s charges on his corporate credit card attributed $613,014.27 in personal, unauthorized, charges by Rosenberg that were paid by Sealed Air.

Most of the items purchased were tied to Rosenberg as he used the credit card to fund a drag racing business of his, so many of the charges were to auto or racing equipment supply businesses. The FBI has conducted its own audit of all the records and confirmed a loss to Sealed Air of approximately $613,000.

Rosenberg had a racing business called "Chaos Drag Racing." A search warrant executed at Rosenberg's house, which had a large pole barn on the property, uncovered hundreds of thousands of dollars in car parts, which correspond to the purchases he made with the company credit card. Those items have been seized and are being stored by the FBI. The government intends to forfeit these items, and sell them and apply the proceeds to restitution.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Winfield D. Ong, who prosecuted the case for the government, Chief Judge Hamilton also imposed two years supervised release following Rosenberg's release from imprisonment. Rosenberg was ordered to make restitution in the amount of $613,014.27.

The Cyber Threat Today: Major Attacks on the Rise

kpaul.mallasch — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:56:24 -0700

Crooks and spies using the Internet to commit crimes against U.S. businesses and to attack government networks are getting more sophisticated, and the increasing number of such crimes not only impacts the economy but threatens national security.

That’s the message Shawn Henry, recently appointed head of our Cyber Division, delivered to a group of reporters on Wednesday, revealing that we have thousands of open cases into cyber crimes and organized cyber attacks and detailing our strategy to protect the nation’s networks.

One case in point: We joined our international partners yesterday in announcing a major takedown of a transnational criminal network that was buying and selling stolen financial information through an online forum known as “Dark Market.”

“The business of the United States is done on the Internet,” said Henry, a veteran cyber crime investigator. And the information that flows electronically 24/7 is increasingly the target of not only identity thieves and scammers, but organized crime groups, terrorists, and overseas governments.

“There are a number of countries who have an interest in stealing information from the United States,” Henry said, explaining that as many as two dozen nations have taken an “aggressive interest” in penetrating our networks. In the past year, he added, “the malicious activity has become much more prevalent.”

Shawn Henry, Assistant Director of the FBI's Cyber Division.

Malicious activity could come in the form of attacks that deny access to websites, that compromise sensitive information, or that introduce “botnets” that spread viruses and covertly co-opt computers to carry out data theft.

“There are a number of countries who have an interest in stealing information from the United States,” Henry said, explaining that as many as two dozen nations have taken an “aggressive interest” in penetrating our networks.

New groups of hackers—virtual gangs—are a growing threat as well, banding together to pool their expertise and carry out coordinated cyber attacks. Henry pointed out that in years gone by, if a gang wanted to rob a bank, it needed crooks with various skills—safe cracker, get-away driver, look-out, etc. That’s essentially what we’re seeing in the cyber world today, only these virtual gang members have never met in the physical world. “There are organized groups that are very successful,” Henry said.

The 3 Ps. To address the rising threat, the Cyber Division has a threefold strategic plan—“Prioritize, Proactive, Partnerships.”

By prioritizing our efforts, we can go after the most critical threats. Being proactive means adopting the same time-tested investigative techniques that have been so successful in our physical crime investigations—the use of informants, electronic surveillance, and placement of undercover agents to penetrate and dismantle virtual criminal operations.

The third “P”—partnerships—means building even stronger relationships with law enforcement agencies worldwide. He said we’ve worked with such countries as Great Britain, Canada, Russia, and Turkey to swap best practices and techniques. We’ve also sent agents to Romania to work with law enforcement there, leading to nearly 100 arrests in cyber crime cases representing “tens of millions of dollars” in losses, Henry said.

And the Internet Crime Complaint Center, or IC3—a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center—continues to assist state and local law enforcement in fighting cyber crime. Since its establishment in 2000, IC3 has received more than a million complaints. In the last couple of years, there’s been an “uptick” in the number of reports, according to Henry. Lately, they’re coming in at the rate of nearly 20,000 per month.

Resources:
- More about IC3
- FBI stories about cyber crime

Source: FBI

Law Enforcement Unravls Extortion Scheme and Prevents Large Scale Identity Fraud

kpaul.mallasch — Fri, 3 Oct 2008 07:45:51 -0700

INDIANAPOLIS, IN - Michael S. Welch, Special Agent in Charge of the Indianapolis Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); Steve Carter, Indiana Attorney General; and Chief Michael Spears, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department jointly announced today the arrest of Kevin Michael Stewart by the FBI Cyber Crime Task Force and the Safe Streets Task Force in Indianapolis, Indiana at 12:30 a.m. this morning.

Stewart is currently facing federal charges arising from the March 31, 2006 burglary of a computer server from the Indianapolis office of Medical Excess LLC, a member company of AIG. The server contained personally identifying and health care sensitive information for over 900,000 policy holders. Stewart is also accused of extorting AIG for $208,000 under a threat to release the data onto the Internet beginning on July 23, 2008.

A criminal complaint has been filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana alleging violations of the extortion statute, Title 18, U.S.C. § 875 and the newly enacted Title 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(7)(B) and (C), which make it a federal crime to commit extortion relating to unauthorized access of, or damage to, a protected computer system and/or to impair the confidentiality of information obtained from a protected computer.

“Stewart is believed to be the first person in the United States to be charged under this new criminal statute, which is designed to address the theft of large data sets from organizations and the resulting consequences,” commented Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven DeBrota.

“AIG reported this matter immediately to the FBI, and worked proactively and aggressively with the multi-agency task force to solve the burglary and prevent the disclosure of sensitive customer information,” said SAC Welch. He went on to say, “The stakes are high when dealing with a threat of this nature, as significant damage to our citizens and our financial infrastructure can occur with a single keystroke.”

“When a company as large as AIG is vulnerable, we know that all businesses are threatened by cyber crime,” said Attorney General Steve Carter.

“The world became a smaller place with the advent of the Internet and when individuals utilize the medium for criminal purposes, there are virtually no barriers on the amount of damage that can occur. It takes coordination and specialization to effectively investigate and successfully prosecute cyber-related crimes.”

The FBI Cyber Crime Task Force is a multi-agency investigative unit with members in the FBI Indianapolis Field Office, Merrillville Resident Agency, and Evansville Resident Agency. The mission of the task force is to protect Indiana's citizens by investigating and preventing high technology crime and neutralizing national security threats involving computer networks. This is accomplished by leveraging the resources and expertise of participating law enforcement agencies, Indiana's higher-education institutions, and members of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

Agencies participating in the task force include the Evansville Police Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Indiana Attorney General's office, Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Indiana State Police, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, United States Secret Service, and the Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Office. Purdue University's Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS) and Department of Computer and Information Technology's Cyber Forensics Lab are special partners in the task force.

Source: FBI Indianapolis

Evansville Crack Dealer Sentenced to 25 Years

kpaul.mallasch — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:45:55 -0700

EVANSVILLE, IN - Timothy M. Morrison, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, announced that Dimitrai Cabell, 29, Evansville, Indiana, was sentenced to 300 months imprisonment yesterday by U.S. District Judge Richard L. Young following his guilty plea to possession of cocaine base with intent to distribute. This case was the result of a five-month investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Evansville Police Department.

Cabell was a mid-level crack cocaine dealer for a cocaine trafficking organization operating in the Evansville area.. The organization distributed approximately 4 kilograms of crack cocaine from May 2007 through August, 2007. CABELL distributed his crack cocaine from his residence, located on North Linwood Street, Evansville.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Bradley A. Blackington, who prosecuted the case for the government, Judge Young also imposed ten years supervised release following Cabell’s release from imprisonment. During the period of supervised release, Cabell will be subjected to random urinalysis and random searches of his person, vehicle, and residence.

Source: US DOJ

FBI: From Anthrax to Attorney General Guidelines

kpaul.mallasch — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 13:05:22 -0700

WASHINGTON, DC - On Tuesday, September 16, 2008, before the House and this morning before the Senate Director Robert Mueller talked about a number of key issues involving the FBI today. He announced, for example, that he has asked the National Academy of Science to conduct an independent review of the scientific approach we used in the anthrax investigation—because of the "importance of science in this case and in cases of the future."

The Director said that investigation "remains open while certain investigative activity winds up" and that more information will be provided when the case is closed. In response to recent financial news, Mueller also said that we're now investigating more than 1,400 mortgage fraud scams, including 24 large sub-prime lenders.

But the Director's focus—just a few weeks removed from the FBI's 100th anniversary celebrations in July—is also clearly on the future.

As you can read for yourself in his testimony, he is determined to get the FBI ready for the threats of tomorrow, whether by recruiting "fresh talent" or by introducing a wave of new technologies and biometric tools that will help us stay ahead of the crime curve and become a "world-class national security organization" driven by intelligence.

The Director spent much of his time talking about two topics that directly impact the success of our future investigative and intelligence work.

The first involves new rules for domestic investigations—called the Attorney General Guidelines—that are in the process of being finalized. The Director laid out the rationale for updating the guidelines, which were first drafted in 1976 and have been revised several times since to address evolving threats and to ensure "that civil liberties are protected as more sophisticated tools became available to counter these threats."

Among his comments:

"Special agents have previously depended on several sets of guidelines to guide their investigations. … These included different rules for national security investigations versus criminal investigations."
"The new guidelines will replace five separate sets of guidelines with a single set of rules to govern the domestic activities of our employees. … They will give us the ability to be more proactive and the flexibility to address complex threats that do not fall solely under one program. They will eliminate inconsistencies that have the potential to cause confusion and create compliance traps for our employees."
"The new guidelines are not designed to give, and do not give, the FBI any broad new authorities. The vast majority of the authorities outlined in the guidelines are not new, but techniques that were permissible under certain circumstances for criminal matters will now also be available for national security matters and vice versa."

The second issue involves our Strategic Execution Team, or SET. Since 9/11, the Bureau has become a full and active partner in the wider intelligence community, gathering and supplying information based on the needs of government leaders and our partners—locally, nationally, and even globally. The SET initiative is all about standardizing what we do, finding the best practices, and replicating them nationwide to "accelerate improvements in our intelligence capabilities." The team's plans have already been implemented in 24 of our 56 field offices; the rollout will be complete by year's end.

Please read the Director's full statement for more details on these and other issues.

Source: FBI Press Release