Customs debuts cybersmuggling center

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1000/100400j1.htm

October 4, 2000

By Joshua Dean
jdean () govexec com

The U.S. Customs Service on Monday opened a brand new facility to
fight crime on the Internet.

The U.S. Customs CyberSmuggling Center is an outgrowth of Customs'
child pornography investigations, said Customs spokeswoman Layne
Lathram. During the investigations, Customs agents began to see
evidence of other kinds of crimes committed on the Internet, such as
money laundering, intellectual property theft and the trafficking of
weapons of mass destruction.

"People advertise Anthrax for sale on the Internet," Lathram said. "We
even found nuclear trigger hammers."

Although the center is new, Customs has been investigating computer
crimes for over a decade. The agency began investigating child
pornography after the Child Protection Act of 1984 was passed.

In 1988, a measure was added that outlawed using computers to
manufacture, transmit, distribute or store child pornography. In 1989,
Customs opened its first computer-based crime investigation. Three
years later, Customs launched its first investigation of child
pornography on the Internet with Operation Long Arm, which ultimately
targeted a child pornography bulletin board maintained in Denmark.

"The Internet de facto crosses a border," Lathram said. "The Internet
effectively transmits across the border and Customs
investigatesanything that has a border nexusinbound and outbound."

The CyberSmuggling Center, located in Fairfax, Va., currently employs
38 people and is expected to soon grow to 50 employees. The center is
divided into three groups. One focuses on child pornography
investigations, another searches for cybersmuggling-type activities
and the third focuses on computer forensics. Many computer criminals
booby-trap their computers, Lathram said, and the computer forensics
team's job is to preserve any original evidence while obtaining data
from original hard drives.


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