Mounties Lack Resources to Fight Organized Crime and Cite Ties to Terrorism

The Canadian Press is reporting:

The head of the RCMP says his agency is increasingly concerned about evidence that organized crime groups are helping to fund terrorist gangs.

Giuliano Zaccardelli's observations Monday may come as a shock to some, but not to those who monitor trends in law enforcement.

Almost every conceivable type of organized crime helps to finance terrorist groups whose chief goal is killing Westerners, said one expert in the field.

That can mean the proceeds from hashish baggies being peddled on street corners, cocaine trafficking, prostitution, pick-pocketing, knock-off designer items and credit card fraud.

Zaccardelli wasn't quite that specific during his appearance before a Senate committee Monday. But he said the evidence is clear, and continually mounting.

Here are some specific examples backing up this claim made by John Thompson of the Mackenzie Institute, which is a Toronto Think Group:

Almost all terrorist groups around the world use organized crime to pay for their operations.

Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden are no different.

The bombers who blew up Madrid's rail system in 2004, injuring 192 people and wounded 2,050, financed their operation by selling hashish.

Hashish from the Middle East, heroin from...Afghanistan and Pakistan, cocaine, it all at some point goes through the hands of terrorists on its way down to the street.

The basic training for al-Qaeda recruits includes at least four major components: handling firearms, making bombs, ideological reinforcement, and supporting yourself through credit-card fraud.

He points to ex-Montrealer Ahmed Ressam, who was convicted of trying to blow up Los Angeles airport on New Year's Eve 1999.

Ressam also planned to set up a side business to help fund his terrorist jihad.

"He was going to try and set up a shop so they could access people's credit cards and start counterfeiting them.''

Link to full story, here.

The saddest part of all this is that the RCMP, who are known for "getting their man" are admitting they only have the resources to address about one-third of this activity.

For another article by the National Post on current RCMP resources and their border problem, link here.

Perhaps, we in the United States should take notice - while we focus on the border to the South - here is another reason, "We Can No Longer Allow Criminals to Control Our Borders."

It seems the Canadians are coming to the same conclusion.

Here is a previous post, I did on this problem:

Do Financial Crimes and Internet Fraud Fund Terrorism

Chip and PIN, Another Chapter in the Attack on Debit Cards

The Daily Mail is reporting that Lloyds is admitting that there is a flaw in chip and PIN technology. The flaw is that the cards can still be remotely encoded and used in ATM's that accept older versions of debit cards.

The article states that the reason criminals are using the cards in other countries is because it takes longer for transactions to post and therefore escapes the "fraud detection" systems already in place.

Also contained in the article are a lot of reader comments, which are very enlightening.

The bottom line is that chip and PIN works, but only in machines that are set up to deal with the technology. This means that until we can create a "global" effort to curtail debit card fraud, newer technologies are going to have a limited effect.

Link to the article by the Daily Mail, here.

As a "Yank," I'm impressed with the fact that Lloyds is being up front with the problem. It's also refreshing to see the mainstream media working with the banks to get the word out.

Financial institutions in the United States haven't been as forthcoming with information. Even to this day, they still aren't admitting to the root causes of recent debit card breaches over here.

They might claim "zero liability" and offer free "identity theft monitoring," but they are in the business of making money. The cost of all of this is ultimately passed on to the customer.

Even though, there were many in the press and from blogs like Boing Boing that were getting the word out, the sources seemed to have either been victims, or confidential. I keep hoping to discover that the reason for this was an "investigation" that put a lot of the culprits -- where they belong -- or behind bars.

The bottom line is that the criminals seem to be very aware of the flaws that allow this to happen. Being up front about the flaws they are exploiting only serves to protect the public, who through their awareness, might spot the activity and report it.

Awareness might also help people from becoming victims, which is the best argument out there for laws forcing this activity to be "disclosed" to the public.

FBI Site to Report Corrupt Civil Servants

The FBI is tired of corruption in government. It's hard to blame them with the amount of it recently reported in the news.

In their own words from the FBI site:

Public corruption is one of the FBI’s top investigative priorities—behind only terrorism, espionage, and cyber crimes. Why? Because our democracy and national security depend on a healthy, efficient, and ethical government. Public corruption can impact everything from how well our borders are secured and our neighborhoods protected…to verdicts handed down in courts of law…to the quality of our roads and schools. Here you can find more information on how we investigate cases of corruption across all levels of government and details on our strong national program to address these crimes.

To go directly to where you can report public corruption, link here.

You can also report dishonest "public sector" activity with a simple telephone call. A list of telephone numbers can be obtained, here.

On their main site, there a a list of stories referencing the prosecution of corrupt civil servants. These can be viewed by clicking on the title of this post.

Remember that when someone in the government steals, it's our tax money that is being abused and with looming deficits, we need every dollar going where it is supposed to.

After all, tax money is for the good of the people and that is all of us!

Are We Addressing Cyber Crime from the Wrong End

Deb Radcliff is a noted author on cybercrime and it's implications. Recently, Deb did a very enlightening post suggesting that our current problems with cybercrime are caused by approaching security "Ass Backwards."

Please note that she got this perspective from someone, who knew little or nothing about the world of cyber crime or fraud. Although fraud has been around since the beginning of time, there is little doubt that technology is enabling it to grow more quickly than ever before. There is also little doubt that the Internet, which provides a lot of anonymity is a enabling factor, also.

Here is the "thought process" Deb and her friend came to:

Oh I see what you're saying! It's like we've got two ends of the same business working against each other," I said as I grabbed a notepad and started writing things down. "On the back end, we've got all these information security experts working their tails off trying to close the vulnerabilities. But on the front end, we've got systems that are laying bare our financial identities."

For example, why, after all these years in not-present mediums, are the credit card issuers unable or unwilling to unequivocally vet new applicants to ensure they're issuing the card to a real person with a legitimate identity? Why, at the very least, is the application not tied to a customer phone number for verification?

So now I'm looking at the bigger financial identity framework and I'm seeing all kinds of gaps.

Let's start with the credit reporting agencies who are responsible for our credit ratings and yet they prevent us from getting the information we need to protect our ratings by not alerting us to new accounts opening under our identities. The reporting agencies have the system in place to do this. But they've made it so hard for consumers to order this service (and when they do, they can only get it for 90 days unless they can prove fraud). Why? Because they make much more money processing our financial identities in real-time than they would if they imposed wait times to get approvals.

For the rest of the post on Deb's blog (On line Crime Bytes), link here.

For more on Deb and where you can read her articles, link here.

When we look at too good to be true Internet crime schemes, greed is always one of the factors a fraudster uses to hook a victim. Could it be possible that it isn't only individual(s), who are guilty of letting greed cause a large part of the problem with cybercrime?

To take this thought process further, could the criminals be taking advantage of "corporate greed," which values profit over the people being victimized? After all, up until now, these companies have been able to pass the cost of fraud on to their customers and make a tidy profit.

Forget the "zero liability" public relations programs, we are being sold. The fact is fraud losses are being added into the "cost of the product." These companies are in the business of making a profit and wouldn't be operating otherwise. They are even trying to add to their income streams by pushing "identity theft products," which some consider a little "questionable," also.

I'm always amazed to note that many of the same companies, who have lost massive amounts of information are marketing identity theft insurance. Some of them probably helped create the need for this service.

Until the financial, information and now even retail sectors are forced to take action, I fear the criminals will continue to take advantage of an "Ass Backward" approach to protecting information.

Bruce Schneier, another well-known security expert echoes this sentiment and has an interesting perspective on what is needed to address cyber crime. He recently wrote:

Push the responsibility -- all of it -- for identity theft onto the financial institutions, and phishing will go away. This fraud will go away not because people will suddenly get smart and quit responding to phishing e-mails, because California has new criminal penalties for phishing, or because ISPs will recognize and delete the e-mails. It will go away because the information a criminal can get from a phishing attack won't be enough for him to commit fraud -- because the companies won't stand for all those losses. If there's one general precept of security policy that is universally true, it is that security works best when the entity that is in the best position to mitigate the risk is responsible for that risk. Making financial institutions responsible for losses due to phishing and identity theft is the only way to deal with the problem. And not just the direct financial losses -- they need to make it less painful to resolve identity theft issues, enabling people to truly clear their names and credit histories. Money to reimburse losses is cheap compared with the expense of redesigning their systems, but anything less won't work.

For more on Bruce Schneier and his work, link here.

Let's face it, cybercrime by all estimates continues to grow. The criminal element seems to be very adept at beating current security systems and are beating new measures, daily.

Until some "forward thinking" is applied to address this problem, we will never find an effective solution.