Cyber crime investigation bears fruit
August 27, 2009
A two-year cyber crime investigation by the Organised Crime Investigation Division (OCID) has led to the arrest of a 26-year-old computer specialist in upper St Andrew on the weekend and three others yesterday.
The 26-year-old man, Philpott Martin, has been charged with three counts of simple larceny and one count of conspiracy to defraud.
Only one of the three men arrested yesterday remains in custody.
It is believed the men wired millions of dollars electronically to the United States and The Cayman Islands from local and overseas institutions.
A local telecommunications company is among the victims.
In a release to the press, the police said its investigations were initiated by complaints from businesses and people, who said their computer networks had been compromised through network intrusion, data interception and data and identity theft.
Hacking machines
During Saturday's operation, $600,000 cash and several computer and telecommunications equipment, including two all-in-one scanners, printers and a fax machine, two external hard drives and six GPRS modems were seized by the lawmen.
The police said that at the time of the raid, they found five computers being used on a network attempting to hack into the network of a local telecommunications company using PGP encryption software. The software is used to hide data.
Financial records, documents and furniture were also seized by the police.
Author: Gleaner Reporter
Source: Jamaica Gleaner
