Victim prosecution

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Hello I'm New here! Joined: 24 Dec 2005 Posts: 13

I was recently hired as an expert witness in a criminal case where a victim of a fake check scam was arrested at the bank.

Unfortunately, the victim had to spend time in jail for passing the fake check, and it wasn't until I was brought in that the D.A. finally realized that they might lose the case and dropped the charges. The trial had already started.

I worked pretty hard on poster-sized descriptions of RFC822 headers and reverse DNS descriptions, etc. I'm glad it paid off, but feel bad for the victim who had to go through this.

I'm going to try to get permission to post the whole of the e-mail exchange as an example of someone getting duped.

Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 8:23 am

It is actually very common for victims to become embroiled in criminal investigations. Some victims also have their bank account closed, and their name marked so they have trouble opening a new one.

I'd say well done for getting the victim released, but I don't know the full story. I do know that there are "victims" who have had a fake bounce and carried on cashing more until the bank called in the police - at some point they cross the line, so I'll reserve judgement until I hear more, if you don't mind. Smile

Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 9:04 am

aviators99 wrote:

I'm going to try to get permission to post the whole of the e-mail exchange as an example of someone getting duped.

Great work - If you could release a word-for-word copy (personal detail removed of course) that would be a great help. I asked for just this on another thread yesterday! I believe it would give great insights on how they work.

Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 11:16 am

Setting aside the specifics of this particular case, it can only be a Good Thing to raise awareness of the extent of internet fraud not only among the general public, but also among the judiciary who aren't always at the cutting edge........... Confused

Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 11:31 am

I would also be very fascinated to read the e-mail exchange from a real scam. Besides getting some great pointers on how to act like a "victim" it would be more motivation to keep doing what we do!

BTW, without revealing too much about your RL, how did you manage to get called as 'expert' testimony?

Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:34 pm

schmoebob wrote:

I would also be very fascinated to read the e-mail exchange from a real scam

Here you go: http://ozbaiter.nightmail.ru/monica.htm It's not the full story though.

Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2007 12:02 am

^^^ THANKYOU - that is exactly what I have been after. That will give me a bit of reading material over the next couple of nights.

Thanks again.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 24 Dec 2005 Posts: 13

schmoebob wrote:

I would also be very fascinated to read the e-mail exchange from a real scam. Besides getting some great pointers on how to act like a "victim" it would be more motivation to keep doing what we do!

BTW, without revealing too much about your RL, how did you manage to get called as 'expert' testimony?

I was called as an expert because I am known as an expert in e-mail authentication and certain types of e-mail fraud (although not specifically targeted or limited to 419). My plan was to explain RFC822 headers, and how the "Received" lines work, and then show the reverse lookups to prove that the e-mails were real, and actually from Africa. Since the messages were still there in her Yahoo! mail account, and the scammer used Hotmail, the location could be trusted, and I could say with certainty that she did not forge them. I was also going to spew out stats from Ultrascan, and a lot of info I've learned from this site over the past couple of years.

I think it shouldn't be a problem to post the e-mail messages with her info removed, but I'm just waiting to hear back.

Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2007 2:27 pm

That would definitely make sense. If it had gone to trial, they would need to prove the emails were either genuine or not.

I knew there was a reason I never clean out my email...

I don't know about mentioning Ultrascan by name as a source, though. Their business practices are extremely controversial, to say the least. As a juror, I would trust their statistics and assertions far less than, say, a government, law enforcement, or other non-profit/governmental source, for several reasons.

Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2007 2:49 pm

@aviators - Very interesting. Thanks. I always wonder how much awareness there is among the legal community of this kind of thing.

Looking forward to reading your e-mails if/when you get permission.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 24 Dec 2005 Posts: 13

mrsbean wrote:

I don't know about mentioning Ultrascan by name as a source, though. Their business practices are extremely controversial, to say the least. As a juror, I would trust their statistics and assertions far less than, say, a government, law enforcement, or other non-profit/governmental source, for several reasons.

I could not find any direct statistics from any government agencies, except second-hand citations from sites like wikipedia.

Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 2:38 pm

A few seconds on Google led me directly to annual reports from ic3.gov, and statistics quoted from the Metropolitan Police, the National Consumers League, the BBB and the FTC, who all seem to release quarterly or annual reports. Presumably, if you contacted them directly or go directly to their websites, they would either have these statistics available or make them available. Most of the references I found were quoted in reliable news sources, so I would assume they were researched.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 24 Dec 2005 Posts: 13

I did notice the annual reports, but they were a bit old. The statistics that were quoted via news sources were included in my report. I was hoping to find fresh, directly reported government statistics, but couldn't find any.

I'm working on stripping out the personal info from the e-mail so that I can post it in the next couple of days.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 24 Dec 2005 Posts: 13

I have all of the e-mail (redacted) in a PDF file. It doesn't seem to allow me to attach it here, though.

I used to be a paid member, but I think it expired.

Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 8:52 am

^^^ www.gofilego.com should do the job. Just post the link it generates afterwards...

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 24 Dec 2005 Posts: 13

This is the link it generated, but it doesn't seem to work for me:

http://www.gofilego.com/?fileid=67bf2f3be9c1da80fc6dd89c21169d32438cdcb6

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 24 Dec 2005 Posts: 13

Does anyone have any other ideas?

*** BANNED *** Joined: 03 Aug 2004 Posts: 881

a99

Your link does work.

Quote:

You are about to download messages.pdf. This file has been downloaded 20 times.

Your download will begin in 10 seconds. Thank you for using GoFileGo.com

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 24 Dec 2005 Posts: 13

Are you saying it downloaded the file after 10 seconds for you?

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

Works fine for me. Thanks to you and the victim for doing this.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 24 Dec 2005 Posts: 13

I'm confused...I tried from several computers, and for all of them it just redirects to the upload page. Could it be an IE7 issue or something?

Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 5:18 am

Works for me, and from IE 7.