The police agency that fightse-crimein the UK has prevented the
loss of millions of pounds by breaking up a group trading in stolen
bank, credit card and identity information.
The second annual report on development and effectiveness of the
Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) said operation Anjowan had
led to the arrest and conviction of UK citizens using complex and
sophisticated methods to harvest and trade the personal details
online.
The potential loss to the UK finance sector from the actions of
just one of the conspirators was assessed at more than £6m, the
report said.
Anjowan was one of several e-crime related operations
highlighted by the report.
In another operation, the report said Soca had prevented the
loss of more than £10m by arresting members of a gang that was
using an advanced Trojan virus to harvest personal financial data
remotely.
Soca has rejected as "unfair" criticism that e-crime appears to
be a low priority for the agency.
A spokesman said the number of people dedicated to fighting
e-crime in the UK had actually increased since being taken over by
the agency crime from the National High Tech Crime Unit even though
it was not one of Soca's key focus areas.
He said in terms of government legislation, Soca was formed to
focus on drug trafficking, fraud, immigration crime and gun
crime.
However, by being part of an organisation that had a much wider
remit, he said the 58-member e-crime unit was able to draw on the
skills and support of the whole unit, such as the relationships
with 140 liaison officers in 40 countries around the world.
Other projects highlighted in the report include Elegia aimed at
identifying compromised financial and identity data being traded by
online criminals, and project Epigraph aimed at helping the
National Firearms Intelligence Cell identify uses of the Internet
to circumvent UK firearms legislation.