Teams of FBI Agents and Metro Detectives fanned out all over town early Monday morning to round up more than 20 suspects believed to be part of a Eurasian organized crime ring that specialized in counterfeiting, credit card fraud, and identity theft.
No one from law enforcement will comment on the record about the operation just yet, but the I-Team first learned back in July that a taskforce was focusing in on the suspected mobsters.
Today the hammer came down. A steady stream of handcuffed suspects were led into jail facilities around the valley.
An unassuming home on Peppermill Drive in Las Vegas was one of the first locations to be searched. The house owned by a local realtor named Gary Ambart-Sumyan. A man fitting his description was led out of the home and was transported to a Metro Police location.
Sources say that inside the home, agents found an unusual assortment of computers that might have been used in identity thefts and the creation of stolen or phony credit cards and debit cards.
At least three suspects were already in custody when the warrants began being served, including two in southern California.
Law enforcement sources say the suspects are Albanians, Bulgarians, Armenians and Russians, many of whom live in California but carry out their dirty work in Las Vegas, sometimes stealing as much as a million dollars a week, according to one well-placed source, ripping off local casinos and businesses with bogus and/or stolen cards and identities.
A law enforcement source close to the investigation said the influx of Eurasian gangsters, especially eastern Europeans, into Las Vegas has been dramatic in recent years and that their financial impact is "overwhelming."
The official also said these new organized crime groups are different from the traditional mafia, loyal only to money, not to any family.
A total of 23 suspects are named in a criminal complaint that will be unveiled Tuesday. Nearly all of them were in custody by 4:00 p.m. Monday afternoon.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Anthony Doyle, Former Chicago Cop in the Family Secrets Mob Trial, Pleads for Release from Jail
A former Chicago cop who secretly worked for the Chicago mob says enough is enough: he should be released from jail.
He is Anthony Doyle who was convicted of aiding and abetting the outfit in Operation Family Secrets.
One-time cop Anthony Doyle hasn't even been sentenced yet, but according to a motion filed late on Monday by his lawyers, he's been punished enough by waiting 15 months at the federal lockup for his court date.
When the Family Secrets mob trial started, Anthony "Twan" Doyle was portrayed as a poor city sanitation laborer who worked his way up to the Chicago Police Department.
In a motion filed Monday, Doyle's lawyers described him as a police hero who should be immediately freed from prison despite last year's conviction as a mob associate.
He was born Anthony Passafume but reputedly changed his name to "Doyle" to fit in with a historically Irish Chicago police force. After Doyle retired, he moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 2001 and volunteered as a county sheriff's deputy.
Among the acts of heroism Doyle's lawyers cite in Monday's get-out-of-jail request is this: Doyle claims that he rescued a Japanese bicyclist who was stranded in the desert under a cactus and survived by drinking his own urine.
Doyle also asks for the court's mercy so he can tend to his wife who lives condo about 60 miles from Phoenix. When the I-Team recently paid a visit to Catherine "Cassie" Doyle, she declined to speak with ABC 7.
In Monday's motion, Doyle contends that his wife had two strokes and has heart trouble and that he stands to lose his $30,000 a year city pension which supports her.
Doyle was originally scheduled to be sentenced on Monday and the other four major 'Family Secrets' defendants were set to be sentenced before Christmas. But in a ruling late Monday afternoon, Judge James Zagel has postponed all the outfit sentencings. Defense attorneys said they were entitled to more time because the government made last minute changes in pre-sentence reports.
That means Doyle will stay in jail along with lead defendant Frank Calabrese who we learned Monday recently had heart surgery.
A hearing is scheduled for today.
Thanks to Chuck Goudie
He is Anthony Doyle who was convicted of aiding and abetting the outfit in Operation Family Secrets.
One-time cop Anthony Doyle hasn't even been sentenced yet, but according to a motion filed late on Monday by his lawyers, he's been punished enough by waiting 15 months at the federal lockup for his court date.When the Family Secrets mob trial started, Anthony "Twan" Doyle was portrayed as a poor city sanitation laborer who worked his way up to the Chicago Police Department.
In a motion filed Monday, Doyle's lawyers described him as a police hero who should be immediately freed from prison despite last year's conviction as a mob associate.
He was born Anthony Passafume but reputedly changed his name to "Doyle" to fit in with a historically Irish Chicago police force. After Doyle retired, he moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 2001 and volunteered as a county sheriff's deputy.
Among the acts of heroism Doyle's lawyers cite in Monday's get-out-of-jail request is this: Doyle claims that he rescued a Japanese bicyclist who was stranded in the desert under a cactus and survived by drinking his own urine.
Doyle also asks for the court's mercy so he can tend to his wife who lives condo about 60 miles from Phoenix. When the I-Team recently paid a visit to Catherine "Cassie" Doyle, she declined to speak with ABC 7.
In Monday's motion, Doyle contends that his wife had two strokes and has heart trouble and that he stands to lose his $30,000 a year city pension which supports her.
Doyle was originally scheduled to be sentenced on Monday and the other four major 'Family Secrets' defendants were set to be sentenced before Christmas. But in a ruling late Monday afternoon, Judge James Zagel has postponed all the outfit sentencings. Defense attorneys said they were entitled to more time because the government made last minute changes in pre-sentence reports.
That means Doyle will stay in jail along with lead defendant Frank Calabrese who we learned Monday recently had heart surgery.
A hearing is scheduled for today.
Thanks to Chuck Goudie
Did a FBI Hero Join the Mob?
Sitting in an unmarked sedan car in South Boston, John Connolly had his binoculars trained on a scene just a block away. It was a gruesome spectacle: a man who had just delivered guns and ammunition to the IRA by ship, was being tortured to death by Boston's most notorious gangster on suspicion of being a snitch for the FBI.
As the murder was playing out, it is alleged Connolly, a leading FBI agent, communicated by walkie-talkie with the torturer, James "Whitey" Bulger, as he first pulled out the victim's tongue and teeth and then tried to strangle the gun-runner, John McIntyre, with a ship's rope.
The FBI man's complicity in this particular murder has never been proved but his betrayal of his badge – proved in two other cases – is one of the most shameful episodes in the agency's history. The macabre incident, worthy of a scene fromThe Sopranos, has nonetheless drawn attention to an extraordinary double standard in which the FBI allowed a notorious Irish-American gang to commit murder and mayhem in Boston for more than a decade, in return for information that would eventually break the back of the Mafia.
Connolly's career would eventually inspire Martin Scorsese's 2006 movie, The Departed (Two-Disc Special Edition)
, in which the loyalties of an undercover agent become hopelessly compromised. The movie, like his career, is set in south Boston where the federal law enforcement agency is waging war on Irish-American organised crime. Connolly's character is played by Matt Damon.
The long arm of the law has finally caught up with Connolly, now aged 68. He was convicted last month of a 1982 murder and has been called to court for sentencing. A decision is likely within weeks. In dramatic courtroom scenes this week, he angrily shouted out his innocence. His many supporters maintain that the FBI is at fault for encouraging him to turn a blind eye to crimes throughout the 1980s.
Nobody knows quite when Connolly decided on his betrayal but it is assumed to have been in the 1970s and bribes had a lot to do with it. As a decorated FBI man, Connolly certainly had access to the most classified information. He learned that the IRA gun runner John McIntyre intended to testify against his fellow gun runners. So, it is alleged, Connolly passed the information on to "Whitey" Bulger, the infamous head of Boston's Winter Hill Gang who was behind the IRA arms shipment.
McIntyre and a friend were lured to a safe house where the gruesome torture began. At one point, Bulger asked his victim if he wanted a bullet to the head, to which McIntyre replied, "Yes, please". He was then shot multiple times and his body later dumped on waste ground.
The gang has now scattered, Bulger himself is still on the run and is America's second most wanted fugitive (after Osama Bin Laden) but some of its members have escaped prosecution by giving evidence. They have also made small fortunes turning their exploits as mobsters into books and screenplays. But if Bulger and his deputy Stephen "the Rifleman" Flemmi were the feared enforcers on the streets of south Boston (Bulger was a "leg breaker, drug dealer, scumbag," in the words of Eddie Mackenzie, one of his ex-accomplices) Connolly acted as a big brother figure.
Back in the 1980s, Special Agent Connolly was a towering giant in the FBI's anti-Mafia unit. He had already spent two decades cultivating informants among New England's mob bosses. As a young undercover agent he walked the streets of New York with the FBI agent Joseph Pistone, who documented his own undercover life in the book Donnie Brasco later made into a film with Johnny Depp.
Pistone however, is not there for Connolly in his current hour of need. As the sentencing hearing of the former FBI hero got under way, Pistone refused to take the stand because the judge refused his request to testify anonymously.
The US courts recently concluded that, in the name of catching ever-bigger Mafia fish, FBI agents were encouraged to let Irish-American gangsters rivals of the mafia, run amok. The policy led to serious breakthroughs against the Mafia but also countless murders and the ill-fated shipment of guns to the IRA. But former FBI agents have also testified on Connolly's behalf and there is even a sophisticated website proclaiming his innocence. When he showed up to be sentenced for his role in facilitating yet another gruesome murder by James "Whitey" Bulger this week, he wept tears for the family of the victim John Callahan. The bullet-ridden body of Callahan was found in the boot of a Cadillac parked at Miami International Airport in 1982. "It's heart-breaking to hear what happened to your father and your husband," Connolly told the family.
In an emotional prison interview with The Boston Globe this week, Connolly still proclaimed his innocence. "I never sold my badge. I never took anybody's money. I never caused anybody to be hurt, at least not knowingly, and I never would."
As a member of the elite anti-Mafia squad for more than 20 years, Connolly's speciality was cultivating informants against New England's mobsters. His accomplishments led to the FBI's Boston office being lionised. Connolly himself became a near legendary figure for his role in a secretly recorded Mafia initiation ceremony complete with blood oaths and prayers and the incineration of an image of the Virgin Mary in the palms of newly made members. He was the first outsider to penetrate the Mob's holy of holies and his coup led to numerous prosecutions of leading members. But somewhere along the way he began taking shortcuts. With the full knowledge and approval of his FBI bosses he started offering protection to members of the Winter Hill Gang in return for leads.
The FBI adamantly denies turning a deliberate blind eye to years of bloody mayhem, murder and gunrunning and maintains that Connolly was merely a rogue agent. But, two months ago, a federal judge slapped the Bureau down and ordered it to pay £1.8m compensation to the 80-year old mother of the murdered John McIntyre.
A damning verdict stated: "The (FBI's) attitude at least reflects a judgement that Connolly's at-the-edge conduct could be tolerated for the greater good of bringing down La Cosa Nostra."
The FBI's successes against the Mafia were matched by its failures against Whitey Bulger's gang. When the Feds finally got around to arresting him in 1995, he was tipped off by a phone call from Connolly. Bulger now has a price of more than $1m on his head, his face on posters in every airport in America, but the likelihood seems that the 71-year-old is lying low in a west of Ireland village.
It now seems that Connolly actually became a member of Bulger's gang, a well-paid partner in crime, very early in their relationship in the late 1970s. He was full-time member of the Irish Goodfellas. It all started back in south Boston (or Southie) a landing pad for generations of working class Irish immigrants. It is a tightly knit place of hard working construction workers and armchair Irish republicans where at the height of Northern Ireland's troubles every bar seemed to have a collection box for IRA "prisoners of war."
Connolly and Bulger grew up in the same block of public housing in the 1940s where the few career options included becoming a cop on the beat, a fireman or a mobster. In his 25-year reign as head of the Winter Hill Gang, Bulger committed as many as 90 murders.
He had other high-powered connections, however. Billy Bulger, his younger brother was for years the head of the Massachusetts state Senate before becoming president of the University of Massachusetts from which he was recently forced to retire. Billy was also a childhood friend and a mentor to Connolly, creating a tangled knot of alliances that went all the way from the Massachusetts state house to the FBI and an untold number of back street torture and murder scenes to which Connolly routinely turned a blind eye.
Connolly was well rewarded of course. "We're taking real good care of that guy," Bulger once said of Connolly. For protecting extortion rackets the agent was reportedly lavished with thousands of dollars and diamond rings in bribes.
When the FBI's internal affairs unit finally turned Connolly over after Bulger's disappearance, they found dozens of uncashed salary cheques and proof that he owned a fancy suburban house. There was also a holiday home among the jet setters of Cape Cod and a £30,000 fishing boat.
Connolly is now facing up to33 years in jail for the 1982 Callahan murder. But his FBI career is one the agency would prefer was forgotten by the public. It promises to haunt the US law enforcement agency for many years, however, as more victims come forward seeking compensation for murders that took place while Connolly and other FBI agents deliberately looked the other way.
Thanks to Leonard Doyle
As the murder was playing out, it is alleged Connolly, a leading FBI agent, communicated by walkie-talkie with the torturer, James "Whitey" Bulger, as he first pulled out the victim's tongue and teeth and then tried to strangle the gun-runner, John McIntyre, with a ship's rope.
The FBI man's complicity in this particular murder has never been proved but his betrayal of his badge – proved in two other cases – is one of the most shameful episodes in the agency's history. The macabre incident, worthy of a scene fromThe Sopranos, has nonetheless drawn attention to an extraordinary double standard in which the FBI allowed a notorious Irish-American gang to commit murder and mayhem in Boston for more than a decade, in return for information that would eventually break the back of the Mafia.
Connolly's career would eventually inspire Martin Scorsese's 2006 movie, The Departed (Two-Disc Special Edition)
, in which the loyalties of an undercover agent become hopelessly compromised. The movie, like his career, is set in south Boston where the federal law enforcement agency is waging war on Irish-American organised crime. Connolly's character is played by Matt Damon.The long arm of the law has finally caught up with Connolly, now aged 68. He was convicted last month of a 1982 murder and has been called to court for sentencing. A decision is likely within weeks. In dramatic courtroom scenes this week, he angrily shouted out his innocence. His many supporters maintain that the FBI is at fault for encouraging him to turn a blind eye to crimes throughout the 1980s.
Nobody knows quite when Connolly decided on his betrayal but it is assumed to have been in the 1970s and bribes had a lot to do with it. As a decorated FBI man, Connolly certainly had access to the most classified information. He learned that the IRA gun runner John McIntyre intended to testify against his fellow gun runners. So, it is alleged, Connolly passed the information on to "Whitey" Bulger, the infamous head of Boston's Winter Hill Gang who was behind the IRA arms shipment.
McIntyre and a friend were lured to a safe house where the gruesome torture began. At one point, Bulger asked his victim if he wanted a bullet to the head, to which McIntyre replied, "Yes, please". He was then shot multiple times and his body later dumped on waste ground.
The gang has now scattered, Bulger himself is still on the run and is America's second most wanted fugitive (after Osama Bin Laden) but some of its members have escaped prosecution by giving evidence. They have also made small fortunes turning their exploits as mobsters into books and screenplays. But if Bulger and his deputy Stephen "the Rifleman" Flemmi were the feared enforcers on the streets of south Boston (Bulger was a "leg breaker, drug dealer, scumbag," in the words of Eddie Mackenzie, one of his ex-accomplices) Connolly acted as a big brother figure.
Back in the 1980s, Special Agent Connolly was a towering giant in the FBI's anti-Mafia unit. He had already spent two decades cultivating informants among New England's mob bosses. As a young undercover agent he walked the streets of New York with the FBI agent Joseph Pistone, who documented his own undercover life in the book Donnie Brasco later made into a film with Johnny Depp.
Pistone however, is not there for Connolly in his current hour of need. As the sentencing hearing of the former FBI hero got under way, Pistone refused to take the stand because the judge refused his request to testify anonymously.
The US courts recently concluded that, in the name of catching ever-bigger Mafia fish, FBI agents were encouraged to let Irish-American gangsters rivals of the mafia, run amok. The policy led to serious breakthroughs against the Mafia but also countless murders and the ill-fated shipment of guns to the IRA. But former FBI agents have also testified on Connolly's behalf and there is even a sophisticated website proclaiming his innocence. When he showed up to be sentenced for his role in facilitating yet another gruesome murder by James "Whitey" Bulger this week, he wept tears for the family of the victim John Callahan. The bullet-ridden body of Callahan was found in the boot of a Cadillac parked at Miami International Airport in 1982. "It's heart-breaking to hear what happened to your father and your husband," Connolly told the family.
In an emotional prison interview with The Boston Globe this week, Connolly still proclaimed his innocence. "I never sold my badge. I never took anybody's money. I never caused anybody to be hurt, at least not knowingly, and I never would."
As a member of the elite anti-Mafia squad for more than 20 years, Connolly's speciality was cultivating informants against New England's mobsters. His accomplishments led to the FBI's Boston office being lionised. Connolly himself became a near legendary figure for his role in a secretly recorded Mafia initiation ceremony complete with blood oaths and prayers and the incineration of an image of the Virgin Mary in the palms of newly made members. He was the first outsider to penetrate the Mob's holy of holies and his coup led to numerous prosecutions of leading members. But somewhere along the way he began taking shortcuts. With the full knowledge and approval of his FBI bosses he started offering protection to members of the Winter Hill Gang in return for leads.
The FBI adamantly denies turning a deliberate blind eye to years of bloody mayhem, murder and gunrunning and maintains that Connolly was merely a rogue agent. But, two months ago, a federal judge slapped the Bureau down and ordered it to pay £1.8m compensation to the 80-year old mother of the murdered John McIntyre.
A damning verdict stated: "The (FBI's) attitude at least reflects a judgement that Connolly's at-the-edge conduct could be tolerated for the greater good of bringing down La Cosa Nostra."
The FBI's successes against the Mafia were matched by its failures against Whitey Bulger's gang. When the Feds finally got around to arresting him in 1995, he was tipped off by a phone call from Connolly. Bulger now has a price of more than $1m on his head, his face on posters in every airport in America, but the likelihood seems that the 71-year-old is lying low in a west of Ireland village.
It now seems that Connolly actually became a member of Bulger's gang, a well-paid partner in crime, very early in their relationship in the late 1970s. He was full-time member of the Irish Goodfellas. It all started back in south Boston (or Southie) a landing pad for generations of working class Irish immigrants. It is a tightly knit place of hard working construction workers and armchair Irish republicans where at the height of Northern Ireland's troubles every bar seemed to have a collection box for IRA "prisoners of war."
Connolly and Bulger grew up in the same block of public housing in the 1940s where the few career options included becoming a cop on the beat, a fireman or a mobster. In his 25-year reign as head of the Winter Hill Gang, Bulger committed as many as 90 murders.
He had other high-powered connections, however. Billy Bulger, his younger brother was for years the head of the Massachusetts state Senate before becoming president of the University of Massachusetts from which he was recently forced to retire. Billy was also a childhood friend and a mentor to Connolly, creating a tangled knot of alliances that went all the way from the Massachusetts state house to the FBI and an untold number of back street torture and murder scenes to which Connolly routinely turned a blind eye.
Connolly was well rewarded of course. "We're taking real good care of that guy," Bulger once said of Connolly. For protecting extortion rackets the agent was reportedly lavished with thousands of dollars and diamond rings in bribes.
When the FBI's internal affairs unit finally turned Connolly over after Bulger's disappearance, they found dozens of uncashed salary cheques and proof that he owned a fancy suburban house. There was also a holiday home among the jet setters of Cape Cod and a £30,000 fishing boat.
Connolly is now facing up to33 years in jail for the 1982 Callahan murder. But his FBI career is one the agency would prefer was forgotten by the public. It promises to haunt the US law enforcement agency for many years, however, as more victims come forward seeking compensation for murders that took place while Connolly and other FBI agents deliberately looked the other way.
Thanks to Leonard Doyle
Reputed Gambino Soldier Gets Tongue-Lashing from Judge, But No Prison Time
A Brooklyn restaurateur got a slap on the wrist for laundering Mafia money Friday - with a little help from friends like Borough President Marty Markowitz.
Reputed Gambino crime family soldier Joseph Chirico won't serve a single day in prison: He was sentenced to six months' house arrest - and can spend 10 hours a day at his Marco Polo restaurant in Carroll Gardens - without even wearing an ankle bracelet.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Brownell said Chirico passed $1,500 in tribute money from a mob associate to another Gambino soldier. "Organized crime has been a curse, especially in counties like Brooklyn and Queens," Brownell argued.
Federal Judge Jack Weinstein gave Chirico a tongue-lashing for swearing an oath to the Mafia - but let him off after Chirico's lawyer read glowing letters from Markowitz and former Brooklyn beep Howard Golden.
Weinstein, who has sentenced scores of Gambinos in the past year, said he always slammed inducted members with more severe sentences.
He said he was swayed because of Chirico's character and defense lawyer Joseph Benfante's argument that jailing him would mean closing the restaurant and putting 25 people out of work. "Being connected with this gang has been useful in his business, he's looked up to, unfortunately, with respect," Weinstein said.
A spokesman for Markowitz declined to comment on Chirico's mob ties.
Chirico, who declined to speak at his sentencing, had faced six to 12 months in prison under federal guidelines.
Meanwhile, Weinstein also sentenced the late Gambino boss John Gotti's brother Vincent and nephew Richard to 97 months in prison for conspiring to murder a Howard Beach bagel store owner suspected of having an affair with Vincent's wife.
Thanks to John Marzulli
Reputed Gambino crime family soldier Joseph Chirico won't serve a single day in prison: He was sentenced to six months' house arrest - and can spend 10 hours a day at his Marco Polo restaurant in Carroll Gardens - without even wearing an ankle bracelet.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Brownell said Chirico passed $1,500 in tribute money from a mob associate to another Gambino soldier. "Organized crime has been a curse, especially in counties like Brooklyn and Queens," Brownell argued.
Federal Judge Jack Weinstein gave Chirico a tongue-lashing for swearing an oath to the Mafia - but let him off after Chirico's lawyer read glowing letters from Markowitz and former Brooklyn beep Howard Golden.
Weinstein, who has sentenced scores of Gambinos in the past year, said he always slammed inducted members with more severe sentences.
He said he was swayed because of Chirico's character and defense lawyer Joseph Benfante's argument that jailing him would mean closing the restaurant and putting 25 people out of work. "Being connected with this gang has been useful in his business, he's looked up to, unfortunately, with respect," Weinstein said.
A spokesman for Markowitz declined to comment on Chirico's mob ties.
Chirico, who declined to speak at his sentencing, had faced six to 12 months in prison under federal guidelines.
Meanwhile, Weinstein also sentenced the late Gambino boss John Gotti's brother Vincent and nephew Richard to 97 months in prison for conspiring to murder a Howard Beach bagel store owner suspected of having an affair with Vincent's wife.
Thanks to John Marzulli
Russia Ranked #1 in Organized Cyber Crime Syndicates
While cyber criminals world-over are driven by similar knowledge of technology, the key difference lies in the "motivation behind the crime", says Chris Goggans, a celebrated American hacker and computer security expert.
Pointing out that internet security issues are as a rising concern all over the world, Goggans said that the Russian mafia account for the "most organized" cyber crimes. "The most serious cyber crimes are from Russia and China. While most of the cyber crimes from Russia are financial in nature (stealing credit card number, bank account details), crimes emanating from China are related to theft of intellectual property, government information and military data," Goggans said.
"The cyber criminals in South America, Brazil, Korea, Europe are not involved in very sinister crimes. They are mainly into hacking for proving themselves," he added.
Goggans has the unique distinction of having broken into the system of America's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) within six hours to uncover potential security threats for the US government. "Often, making leeways in the norms set by the parent company for small comforts creates major hurdles in the security system," Goggans said.
Claiming that he hasn't "seen much cyber crimes" from India, Goggans said that it may be because of the low proportion of cyber crimes, or simply that it may have skipped his eye.
Explaining the nature of cyber crimes in the US, he said that it is motivated mostly by revenge and malicious intent. "Holding network administrators hostage by stealing passwords, crashing database
by a sacked worker, sending hate email... those are the crime Americans indulge in. While it is certainly annoying to clean up after such a crime, it is not threatening," he said.
Goggans put forth a simple two-point agenda to ensure cyber security of the average person connecting to the world wide web. "Keep your software and computer updated every day. As soon as Microsoft, Apple or whatever system you use issues an update, install it. And do not open suspicious or random emails. If you receive an email from someone you know but it doesn't seem to be normal,' check with the alleged sender of the email before opening it. These small things will keep you safe and increase your cyber-security multifold," he said.
Thanks to The Times
Pointing out that internet security issues are as a rising concern all over the world, Goggans said that the Russian mafia account for the "most organized" cyber crimes. "The most serious cyber crimes are from Russia and China. While most of the cyber crimes from Russia are financial in nature (stealing credit card number, bank account details), crimes emanating from China are related to theft of intellectual property, government information and military data," Goggans said.
"The cyber criminals in South America, Brazil, Korea, Europe are not involved in very sinister crimes. They are mainly into hacking for proving themselves," he added.
Goggans has the unique distinction of having broken into the system of America's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) within six hours to uncover potential security threats for the US government. "Often, making leeways in the norms set by the parent company for small comforts creates major hurdles in the security system," Goggans said.
Claiming that he hasn't "seen much cyber crimes" from India, Goggans said that it may be because of the low proportion of cyber crimes, or simply that it may have skipped his eye.
Explaining the nature of cyber crimes in the US, he said that it is motivated mostly by revenge and malicious intent. "Holding network administrators hostage by stealing passwords, crashing database
by a sacked worker, sending hate email... those are the crime Americans indulge in. While it is certainly annoying to clean up after such a crime, it is not threatening," he said.
Goggans put forth a simple two-point agenda to ensure cyber security of the average person connecting to the world wide web. "Keep your software and computer updated every day. As soon as Microsoft, Apple or whatever system you use issues an update, install it. And do not open suspicious or random emails. If you receive an email from someone you know but it doesn't seem to be normal,' check with the alleged sender of the email before opening it. These small things will keep you safe and increase your cyber-security multifold," he said.
Thanks to The Times
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