Attorney General announces Arrests in Operation Web Snare

Washington, D.C. - Arrests and convictions of over 150 individuals were announced today as a result of a coordinated multi-agency attack on online econimic crime and other forms of cybercrime.

Attorney General John Ashcroft announced successes in the administrations battle against online crime through a program known as Operation Web Snare. The 150 arrests and convictions were made through the cooperation of a staggering number of law enforcement organizations including 36 U.S. Attorneys’ offices, the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, 37 FBI field divisions, 13 of the Postal Inspection Service’s field divisions, and the FTC, among others.

Operations Web Snare focuses on crimes such as identiity theft, fraud, counterfeit software, intellectual property crimes, and computer intrusions. Much of the ciminal activity was found to be a combination of both traditional crimes and crimes formerly to have been focused online.

Examples given by Attorney General Ashcroft included fraudulent online sales, credit card number theft through chat rooms, online extortion attempts directed at Eddie Bauer, Inc. from a man in Pakistan, and denial of service attacks made for commercial advantage.

Web Snare began on the first of June and ran until August 26th, 2004. Over 160 investigations involved more than 150,000 victims with losses estimated to be in excess of $215 million.

"Operation Web Snare also shows that America’s justice community is seeking to anticipate, out think and adapt to new trends in Internet crime," said Attorney General John Ashcroft. "This effort shows how effective law enforcement can be against online crime when all levels of government - domestically and internationally - work together."