• 13
  • January
    2012

"As more people use the Internet to conduct everyday transactions," says the U.S. Attorney involved in the case, "we are increasing our efforts to protect consumers from fraud artists committed to taking hard-earned money from consumers who are increasingly comfortable doing business in cyberspace."

As Mark Rockwell reports for Government Security News, six people have been indicted for Internet fraud involving more than $4 million dollars.

Three of the accused are currently in custody in Nevada and California; the other three remain at-large overseas. All of the men are in their 20s and 30s and appear to be European nationals.

As in many other Internet fraud cases, government prosecutors speak of Web "anonymity," behind which the accused are said to have hid to help perpetrate fraud. But it is this same anonymity that gives rise to the universal issue of search and seizures conducted by the police - to which every criminal defense lawyer turns when investigating the facts and defending his or her clients.

In Internet fraud cases, just as in fraud cases that do not involve the Internet, an unlawful search and seizure can be just as damaging to the prosecutor's case.

It is unclear, based on Rockwell's report, how the men came to be indicted; there were, however, many different law enforcement agencies involved in the investigation, ranging from Homeland Security Investigations (a division of ICE) to the U.S. Secret Service.

Source: Government Security News, "Six indicted in $4 million Internet vehicle sales scam," by Mark Rockwell, 12/30/11