Fighting cybercrime

While some criminals still use low-tech tools like a note to commit crimes, others are turning high-tech and using computers to commit their crimes. <br/><br/>News on 6 crime reporter Lori Fullbright

Tuesday, November 1st 2005, 10:03 am

By: News On 6

While some criminals still use low-tech tools like a note to commit crimes, others are turning high-tech and using computers to commit their crimes.

News on 6 crime reporter Lori Fullbright explains how police train to catch this new breed.

These crimes can be everything from cyber stalking to fraud and child pornography and they take a lot of time and knowledge to track. That's why police from all over the nation are in Tulsa this week, learning how to beat these cyber criminals at their own game.

Police Chief Paul Lindhag from North Pole, Alaska has only nine officers on his department and says his town of 1,600 doesn't have a lot of cyber crime yet, but he knows its coming. That's why he's in a class in Tulsa, learning how to find, stop and prosecute these high-tech criminals. "People think they've got their stuff deleted, but, it's probably still on there." In addition to committing crimes using a computer, criminals also leave behind a trail of evidence for crimes that are not computer related, like homicides. Detectives must keep up with ways to retrieve that digital information and present it in court.

Bryan Kelly with the National White Collar Crime Center: "The bad guys are out there keeping up with the latest and greatest and they have money because of their criminal activities and law enforcement doesn't have that kind of money or even training."

The University of Tulsa and the Tulsa Police Department are well-known for leading the industry in the area of cyber technology, so they were a natural fit to host this class for officers from places like Arizona, New Mexico, Arkansas and the DEA. All this attention to cyber crimes, helps all of us.

For instance, there's a new central place to report Internet crimes. Say you live in Tulsa, but the person stalking you online or the person who cheated you online lives in another state, you can now go to www.IC3.gov and they will notify police agencies in both states. This will go a long way to stop these cyber criminals who work across state lines and think they can get away with it.