On Q Professional Investigations

” A Turkish man who led three cyberattacks against global financial institutions that caused more than $55 million in losses pleaded guilty Tuesday, prosecutors said.

Ercan Findikoglu, 34, whose online nicknames included “Segate,” ”Predator,” and “Oreon,” entered the plea in Brooklyn federal court.

Prosecutors said he used cashing crews worldwide to make fraudulent ATM withdrawals on a massive scale across the globe. In a February 2011 operation, Findikoglu’s cashing crews withdrew about $10 million through 15,000 fraudulent ATM withdraws in at least 18 countries, they said.

The government said he hacked into computer systems of three payment processing companies. It said he and co-conspirators accessed prepaid debit card accounts, inflated balances and removed their withdrawal limits between 2011 and 2013.

In a February 2013 attack, crews in 24 countries made 36,000 transactions, withdrawing about $40 million from ATMS, prosecutors said. During one operation, they added, crews in New York City withdrew approximately $2.4 million from nearly 3,000 ATM withdrawals during an 11-hour period.

His lawyer hasn’t commented.

In a release, U.S. Attorney Robert L. Capers called the cyberattacks massive.”

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“The masked criminal known as the Cyborg Bandit and, later, the Elephant Man Bandit was robbing Seattle-area banks at an average of more than two per month for an entire year before he was caught—in the act of robbing a bank he had already robbed.

For investigators who routinely work bank robberies, the story of 46-year-old Anthony Hathaway, sentenced last month to nearly nine years in prison, is surprising in some ways but all too familiar in others.

“In this particular case and in general, bank robbery is a crime of last resort,” said Len Carver, a detective with the Seattle Police Department and member of the FBI’s Seattle Safe Streets Task Force. “Occasionally you get a thrill seeker or a truly violent individual, but most people who rob banks are supporting an addiction of some kind—drugs or gambling—and they are desperate.”

Hathaway’s addiction was to prescription painkillers and then to heroin. According to court records, he suffered an injury and became addicted to the opiate Oxycontin. After losing his job, he turned to crime to feed his addiction, and between February 2013 and February 2014, Hathaway admitted to 30 bank robberies. He sometimes hit the same bank multiple times.

“Seattle has had many serial bandits over the years,” Carver said, “but Hathaway was prolific. He might top the list for sheer number of robberies in a one-year period.”

During the holdups, which usually occurred late in the afternoon, Hathaway wore a mask and gloves. In the early crimes, he wore textured metallic fabric over his face and was nicknamed the Cyborg Bandit because the disguise was similar to that of cyborgs in science fiction productions. After that disguise began receiving too much media attention, he covered his head with a shirt and cut out two eye holes. That earned him the nickname the Elephant Man Bandit because of the similarity to a movie character of the same name.

In several robberies, Hathaway threatened tellers, saying he had a weapon, although no weapon was ever displayed. On February 4, 2014, after a robbery in Lynwood, Washington, surveillance video showed what might have been the robber’s getaway vehicle: a light blue minivan with a Seattle Seahawks football decal on the back window and an unusual, after-market exterior mirror.

A bulletin with the vehicle’s description went out to area law enforcement, and an Everett Police Department officer spotted it several days later and notified investigators. “An officer on patrol was being observant,” Carver said. “It was a key moment in the investigation.”

At that point, however, the bank robber’s identity was still unknown. The vehicle was not registered to Hathaway, and several people had access to it. FBI agents began surveillance, and on February 11, 2014 they observed a man drive away in the vehicle.

The driver spent several hours circling a Seattle bank that had been previously robbed. “It seemed clear he was going to rob the bank,” Carver said, “and we had a high confidence that whoever was driving the van and about to rob that bank was going to be good for the other robberies.”

Finally, Hathaway parked and pulled a mask over his face as he entered the bank. FBI agents and task force officers were there to arrest him moments later. Hathaway was identified and later admitted to the 30 robberies. In a plea arrangement concluded last month, he was sentenced to 106 months in prison.

“We are grateful that the Safe Streets Task Force was able to close all these robberies,” Carver said. “And we are pleased that Hathaway is no longer a threat to the community.”

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Everybody lies. We lie to protect people from painful truths and to preserve the family name. We lie about affairs, flirtations, and addictions. Sometimes, we even lie to ourselves.

In this episode, we’ll hear two stories about family secrets—and the blurry line between deception and delusion: An alcoholic conceals his addiction from everyone, including himself. And Ann Walling recalls her old-school Southern family, the rites and hierarchies they observed, and the painful histories they could never bring themselves to face.

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As the holiday shopping season officially gets underway, the FBI would like to take this opportunity to warn shoppers to be aware of the increasingly aggressive techniques of cyber criminals who want to steal your money and your personal information.

For example, watch out for online shopping scams—criminals often scheme to defraud victims by offering too-good-to-be-true deals, like brand name merchandise at extremely low discounts or gift cards as an incentive to buy a product. Beware of social media scams, including posts on social media sites that offer vouchers or gift cards or that pose as holiday promotions or contests. Always be careful when downloading mobile applications on your smartphone—some apps, disguised as games and offered for free, maybe be designed to steal personal information. And if you’re in need of extra cash this time of year, watch out for websites and online postings offering work you can do from home—you may actually become the victim of an advance fee, counterfeit, or pyramid scheme, or become an unknowing participant in criminal activity.

Here are some additional steps you can take to avoid becoming a victim of cyber fraud this season:

Check your credit card statement routinely, and ensure websites are secure and reputable before providing your credit card number;
Do your research to ensure the legitimacy of the individual or company you are purchasing from;
Beware of providing credit card information when requested through unsolicited e-mails;
Avoid filling out forms contained in e-mail messages that ask for personal information;
Never click on links contained within unsolicited e-mails;
Verify any requests for personal information from any business or financial institution by contacting them directly;
Be cautious of e-mails claiming to contain pictures in attached files, especially unsolicited e-mails—the files may contain viruses; and
Be leery if you are requested to act quickly or told there is an emergency (fraudsters often create a sense of urgency).
If you suspect you have been victimized, contact your financial institution immediately, contact law enforcement, and file a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).

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Authorities arrested two people for credit card fraud in Lemon Grove last week.

Lasaro Quijano, 30, and Bunthi Im, 29, were arrested after officers found numerous fraudulent credit and ID cards, meth and other drugs and a stolen handgun. A search of the couple’s vehicle revealed credit card making materials and items purchased with the fraudulent cards.

Lemon Grove Home Depot employees called the Sheriff’s Department after one of the suspects made a purchase with a fake card. The employees then saw him enter a hotel room across the street.
The couple is suspected of conducting numerous similar credit card frauds at Home Depot stores throughout the state.

Quijano and Im were booked into jail on a number of charges including burglary, possession of a forged driver’s license, possession of a stolen handgun, having card making machinery, possession of a counterfeit access card and possession of a controlled substance among other charges.

Their bail is set at $250,000.

The Sheriff’s Financial Crimes Unit is conducting further investigation.

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The front line in the fight against domestic abuse could be hair stylists.

At a City Council committee hearing today, prosecutors and domestic violence experts campaigned for hair stylists, cosmetologists, and nail technicians to go through mandatory training to spot signs of abuse, and help victims.

When women sit in that hair chair, a unique bond is created between them and their stylist. The City Council heard from sponsors of a resolution today that aims to capitalize on that bond for the safety of women in abusive relationships.

“There’s a confessional door that closes when you sit in the chair,” said Marek Hartwig, owner of Marek Bridal Styling.

Hartwig, a 25-year veteran of the industry, said his clients feel like they can tell him anything, and now he’s one of thousands of hair stylists in Illinois who could use their stylist/client bond to become an integral part in the war to stop domestic violence.

“There’s a trust, and they tell things more to a stylist than they tell probably anybody else, because it’s a no judge zone,” Hartwig said.

He and his peers could soon be required to take a one-hour training class before the next time their licenses come up for renewal.

“I completely agree with it,” Hartwig said.

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WASHINGTON – Two teens were arrested after police thwarted a plot “to commit acts of violence against the students and staff” at Riverbend High School near Fredericksburg, Virginia, according to the Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s department.

A 15-year-old and a 17-year-old boy, whom police did not name, were arrested after a school resource officer learned of the plot. The teens were charged with conspiracy to commit murder and are being held at Rappahannock Regional Juvenile Detention Center.

According to police, one of the teens was arrested Oct. 12 on a charge of threatening violence by means of Internet. “[The school resource officer] felt that there was something that didn’t quite fit in what he was looking at the time, so he began to dig a little deeper — and thus uncovered this situation,” Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s Capt. Jeffery Pearce said.

Police said that’s what led investigators to the second teen, who was arrested on Friday.

“It became apparent that these two were serious and in their planning stages to carry out acts of violence with firearms and with knives … and that they planned to do this in the school,” Pearce said.

No additional suspects are believed to be involved in this conspiracy.

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If your evidence room contains any digital evidence on VHS tapes, it should be digitized as soon as possible

In this day and age, you’d probably be as surprised as we were to learn that many law enforcement agencies around the country are still using VHS tapes to store digital evidence. Most police departments have already stopped using VHS tapes, but still maintain a lot of old digital evidence, some of which is crucial, on VHS tapes. A few months ago, we published a blog post about the Problems with using CDs/DVDs to store digital evidence and today we thought it’s important to mention few of the problems you will face in the near future if you continue to use VHS tapes.

1. There is no real of custody for digital evidence as far as who has viewed the tapes or who has copied them. While you probably have a chain of custody for the VHS tape itself, that’s simply not enough.

2. There is no security. Once the VHS tape (or a copy) leaves the evidence room, you have no control over what happens to it. Imagine the embarrassment if a sensitive recording were to show up in the press or on YouTube.

3. There is no way to verify authenticity. Tapes could be altered before being copied to another tape and no one would ever know.

4. It can be tough to manage the digital evidence on large cases. For example, you receive multiple tapes from a crime scene, then, a few days later, more tapes arrive from the lab or from a search warrant.
Later on you receive videos from multiple suspect interviews. There are a lot of labeling considerations just to keep it all straight. It can be particularly challenging when investigators or prosecutors want to review the digital evidence. You’ll have to sort through all of those tapes and try find the exact ones you need, then go through the time consuming dubbing process.

5. Cross referencing one case with another or sharing a single piece of evidence between related cases is complicated.

6. The labor involved can be intensive. Even when the case is closed you still need to dispose the related physical evidence.

7. One little known technical problems with VHS tapes is that they go bad and become unusable after a certain period of time. Losing digital evidence might be catastrophic to your case and you will have to make new copies of VHS tapes for each case every 2-3 years just to preserve the evidence on them.

8. VHS tapes players are very rare in the marketplace today. What if yours breaks and you need to play that tape 5 years from now? Will you even be able to find a player by then?

9. Having any VHS tape close to any magnetic field will destroy the tape in a very short period of time.

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In the jewelry world, the name of Doris Payne commands, if not respect, at least concern.

Police said Payne, who’s 84, is a world renowned thief who’s been stealing high-end jewelry for more than 50 years.

Her crimes have been traced to Greece, Britain, France, Switzerland, Monte Carlo, and the United States.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department believes that on July 11, Payne took a $33,000 diamond engagement ring from David Yurman jewelers at South Park Mall.

They would not confirm that with Channel 9, but we obtained a copy of an email sent from police to several local jewelers following the heist.

“We’re talking about Doris Payne, and her reputation walks far ahead of her,” said Dovy Klarberg, co-owner of Diamonds Direct SouthPark. After receiving an email from CMPD naming Payne as the suspect in the theft at the mall, Klarberg alerted his staff to be on the lookout for her.

Payne is known to use slight of hand. She will ask to see a piece of jewelry, then slip it on her finger while a store employee is distracted. Klarberg even watched a documentary made about her life, and called her a clever person.

“It’s a difficult level of sophistication, or I guess from her end, a level of professionalism,” he said.

Some jewelry shoppers were stunned to think such a person could be in Charlotte, and still committing crimes.

“I guess she’s had lots of time to practice,” said Myra Southwell. “Still, it’s sad that she’s had to resort to that her whole life.”

Payne has served prison time, and was apparently released within the last year. USA Today has reported that actress Halle Berry was considering playing her in a movie about her life story.

“That’s just unreal. I can’t imagine that happening,” said Kellis Wiseman, also out shopping for jewelry Monday. “I can’t believe she’s gotten away with it for so many years.”

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police will not discuss suspects in the heist at SouthPark Mall, and have not released any surveillance video of the crime. The email to local jewelers states that a Tiffany & Co. employee saw Payne and tried to alert another employee at David Yurman, but it was too late.

So far there have been no arrests. Employees at David Yurman would not comment when reached Monday afternoon.

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An international survey* among public transport organizations reveals that operators worldwide are continuing to invest in leading edge security technology, with the majority interested in adopting more widespread use of real-time surveillance and advanced video analytics to better protect their passengers, equipment and installations.

The survey was conducted by UITP, the International Association of Public Transport, and Axis Communications, the world leader in network video.

97% of survey respondents have already installed security cameras. This indicates not only a very strong installed base but also that public transport operators are convinced of the baseline value that video surveillance offers their organizations.

The vast majority of respondents reported that video surveillance systems help increase the actual and perceived security among passengers and staff, as well as minimize, deter and manage various types of crime and vandalism.

The survey also revealed that public transport staff is generally very positive towards the use of video surveillance with more than 83% indicating positive or neutral reactions, especially when usage of the system is well communicated to staff. Some responders do not gather staff or passenger feedback, but from those that do, no responder reported a negative reaction from staff or passengers.

The use of video surveillance within public transport is no longer only a matter of incident evidence, even if the vast majority of respondents (86%) find this forensic element the most valuable concrete use. Real-time detection of incidents also scored highly in terms of potential value (72%), indicating this is a trend to come.

Already today, 42% of respondents can share live video with other parties such as police or other authorities, and 50+% plan on using real-time video surveillance in “rolling stock” (moving vehicles vs. just in static locations). This underlines the value of real-time video surveillance monitoring across all areas of a public transport system.

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