Cyber Criminal-Shaun Jones

Cyber Criminal: Shaun Jones

Name

Course

Facilitator

Date Due

Project Part 1

Shaun Jones is a 33 year old computer science graduate from the University of Michigan. He was born and brought up in Detroit Michigan, in the Midwestern state of Michigan in a family of four. His father was a successful business man who made sure he gave Shaun and his two other siblings the best education they could wish for. His mother was a stay at home mum, who did all she could to raise her four children with all the love they deserved.

After graduating from the University of Michigan, he worked in a telecommunication company for a few year before getting fired for defrauding the company’s clients. He ventured into online freelancing, at his home in the neighborhood of Michigan, from where he claims to work online.

It was not after 3 year of his “freelancing” when the cybercrime unit of the FBI caught up with him, and identifying him as a cybercriminal. Although he does some computer consultancy online, much of his time behind his computer screens is spent defrauding people through the internet. He makes a living by stealing other peoples Identities and ultimately their money, enough money to afford himself luxury cars and a posh lifestyle. That’s the source of his funding, and it is a big enough syndicate that he leads a pack of other junior criminals, who work under him. This gang is disguised as an online consulting agency and has lured many unsuspecting individuals to falling prey to their fraud. The FBI identified Shaun and his group as phishers and hackers, because what they basically do is establish a rapport with potential preys and somehow get information from them, either by the victim voluntary giving out the information, or by Shaun and his group hacking to their computers and remotely acquiring sensitive information from them (Information Resources Management Association, 2014). The psychological theory that could best explain Shaun is the behaviorism, which concentrates on the acquired behavior through observation (Woollard, 2010), just as is the case in Shaun’s story. The degree in computer science is believed to play a big role in making Shaun the cyber-criminal that he is today.

Shaun’s crime is a complex one by nature, and it involves a number of activities. He would first identify potential victims, who are people with a line of credit accounts and large balances. Through accomplices in different industries that have people’s personally identifiable information like names, Social Security numbers, address and dates of birth and then use other online sites that provides personal information that would help him with passwords and security pass questions. With this information, Shaun was able to access the potential victims’ credit reports and other financial and personal information.

This information is what Shaun needs to commit the crime that he is about to. He would now impersonate the victim, and transfer money to other accounts that he is said to own, usually outside the country. If the account balance is not substantive, Shaun would act as the client and call the bank, requesting for a loan, then wire the amount to his other bank accounts. With the experience he gained in the telecommunications industry, he was able to use caller ID spoofing, a technique that would have the customer’s legitimate phone number displayed in the other end. Shaun, in his syndicate makes sure that he has sealed all possible avenues of a possibility of him getting noticed as not the account holder. If the bank needed to call the victim, he would again impersonate the victim and call the victim’s telephone company, requesting his calls to be forwarded to another number, which one of his crew members owned.

Project Part 2

As a law enforcement officer, it is incumbent upon me to protect the citizens from such criminals like Shaun, and with the complex nature of his crime, as well as the connections shun has established, this case would be a hard nut to crack. However, the long arm of justice must get to anyone who tries to reap where they did not plant. As a Federal Bureau of Investigation officer, I am certain our agency would be better placed to investigate and arrest Shaun, because it is an agency that works on enforcing criminal laws in the country, among other reasons, and beyond (Elliff, 2015). FBI will be pursuing this case because Shaun is believed to be contravening U.S.C. §§ 45, 52 on unfair or deceptive practices or acts; false advertisements, U.S.C. § 1644 on credit card fraud, U.S.C. §§ 1028, 1029 and 1030 which are about fraud in connection with identification information and documents, fraud in connection with computers and fraud in connection with devices and U.S.C. § 1341, which is wire, mail, and bank fraud.

As an FBI agent, the first step will be to register launch investigations on Shaun, and inviting anyone who might have their money transferred to other bank accounts without their consent to record statements at the offices. These statements will help a great deal in the investigations, and will give leads that will help incriminate Shaun. I will be working with the local police at Michigan, since it is their jurisdiction. Also, the banks where the victims were defrauded will also be helpful in the investigations, since we need to identify the bank accounts that the victim’s money were transferred to. Another partner that would be of great help would be the client’s telecommunications companies that will help us identify the location of the phone calls that were made to the banks, as well as the calls they received asking for call forwarding. We will bank on our Information technology department to help us identify the location of Shaun’s computer using the internet connection that Shaun uses, although Shaun might have hid his IP address. This will therefore involve high-tech investigations.

According to the United Nations (2009), physical evidence recognition basically starts by observing the scene of crime if any. In this case, I will have to go to Shaun’s house, and observe what he has been doing there. Also, from the banks and the telecommunication companies involved we could get some sound clips that were used to request for a cash transfer and call forwarding request. In compliance to the law, I would get a search warrant from a federal court judge to search Shaun’s house and seize what is directly related to his criminal activities, to be used as evidence.

CHAIN OF CUSTODY EVIDENCE TRACKING FORM

Case Number: __________23435A/15_______ Offense: ______________________________

Submitting Officer: (Name/ID#) _______________Agent_____________________________

Victim: ____________________ FEDERAL STATE _____________________________

Suspect: __________________ SHAUN JONES _____________________________________

Date/Time Seized: ______11:00 AM________Location of Seizure: ____MICHIGAN_________

The evidence need to be authenticated, and shown to be genuine. Since these items are real items, the authentication here would be to ascertain whether the confiscated items are the actual gadgets and items used by Shaun and his gang to commit the alleged crime. Emanuel & Friedman, (2010) gives us one of the ways of authenticating evidence, which is by showing that this is actually the case, and that the specific items were used in the criminal activities. This is possible by looking at the laptops’ browser history, and having the telecommunications companies for the mobile phones to help confirm the phones are the ones that were actually used by Shaun and his friends.

Armed with the evidence and the witnesses ready to testify and report as Shaun’s victims, I would go ahead and arrest Shaun. I would do this with his right in mind, and actually go ahead and provide him with the “Miranda rights”. I will let him know that he had the right to remain silent and decline to answer questions, and informing him that anything he would say may be used against him in a court of law. I will directly take him to custody, where he will await his case to begin. The case will be heard in a federal court, since it is a case that includes a syndicate that is so complex, and it includes inter-state crime. The federal judge cross-examines evidence from the prosecution as well as Shaun’s attorney, to ascertain who is right. At the end of the trial, Shaun is sentenced to 15 years for multiple counts of fraud and cybercrime. This is the success that is attributable to the overwhelming number of people who came out to claim that Shaun had defrauded them

References

Crime scene and physical evidence awareness for non-forensic personnel. (2009). New York:

United Nations.

Elliff, J. (2015). The Reform of FBI Intelligence Operations. Princeton: Princeton University

Press.

Emanuel, S., & Friedman, J. (2010). Evidence (7th ed.). Austin: Wolters Kluwer Law &

Business ;.

Information Resources Management Association, (2014). Cyber Crime Concepts,

Methodologies, Tools and Applications. Hershey: IGI Global.

Woollard, J. (2010). Psychology for the classroom behaviourism. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon:

Routledge.