The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) thwarted a number
of major cyber crimes throughout 2008/09, resulting in scores of
arrests and millions of pounds in recovered assets.
In its
annual report published yesterday, SOCA revealed how it brought
down the online criminal forum DarkMarket, which was widely
regarded as one of the key sites supporting the theft and sale of
compromised personal information. DarkMarket
traded in large quantities of stolen payment card and banking
data, and provided criminals with the tools to exploit
them.
Working with the FBI, SOCA was able to collect vital
intelligence and forensic data, leading to the arrest of some 60
people in Turkey, Germany, the US and the UK.
The collar most prized was that of Adewale Taiwo, a Nigerian
national known as "fredbb" in DarkMarket, now serving five years
imprisonment for conspiracy to defraud. Taiwo admitted causing
£600,000 of fraud, although £240,000 had been successfully frozen
by the banking sector. He will be deported on completion of his
sentence.
SOCA reported that coordinated international operations saved
$70m in potential losses and recovered more than 16,000 compromised
cards, with forensic work still underway.
In another major sting, SOCA subverted the largest ever
attempted bank theft in the UK when it tracked and stopped a gang
attempting to transfer £229m from the Sumitomo Matsui Banking
Corporation in London.
As part of a global effort against Nigerian 419 and other mass
marketing scams, which cost the UK £340m each year, SOCA also
worked with Nigerian authorities to intercept fraudulent mail
targeting the UK. Soca intercepted 20,000 responses from victims of
the scams, with the agency pledging to return money to anybody
tricked by the con.
The report outlined the results of SOCAs ongoing investment in
IT solutions, including an estimated £1.5m in savings resulting
from its technology-enabled self support programme.
The interception of communications was identified as a key
component of SOCAs operations, with new systems deployed and the
announcement of plans to work closely with the Home Office on
future improvements under the Interception Modernisation Programme.
SOCA also reported improved processes for sharing data on
criminals, embedding IT systems and staff in police-led regional
intelligence units.
SOCA undertook a major overhaul of its IT systems throughout
2008/09. Two large and separate legacy networks were integrated
under the auspices of IT Transformation. The 2010 programme saw the
replacement of SOCAs inherited IT and logistics services contracts,
with Treasury approval received to initiate procurement.
Work also stared on Project Kerno, an initiative to deliver the
Suspicious Activity Reports Transformation Project, the Atlas
Programme (SOCA's core records management capability) and a core
ICT transformation programme to reduce costs and modernise
processes.