Why Is International Credit Card Fraud So Difficult To Prosecute?Since around the year 2000, international credit card fraud has become far more common. The rapid advance of the internet has made it much easier for criminals to operate in loosely connected alliances across the world. Your author has read stories online of victims that have had their credit card skimmed in one country - lets say Canada - and within 12 hours, their card had been copied and the copies were used in Thailand, Pakistan and Mexico to make withdrawals. By the time 24 hours had passed, the withdrawals had stopped - the accounts were presumably empty - and the cards never used again! Trying to combat such international efficiency is not easy! If you had ever wondered about the term 'organised crime', now you know just how efficient they can be. These criminal alliances might involve outsourcing some elements of a crime - buying services from specialists - or having partners in the operation. The complications that this adds for law enforcement make successful prosecutions less and less likely.
Law enforcement agencies generally need to follow myriad procedures to be able to cooperate with an agency from another country or jurisdiction. While they are getting the correct forms to seek proper approval, the criminal gangs have changed focus, changed crime, physically or virtually moved. There has also been a trend by criminals to have parts of their operation in locations where law enforcement is overstretched, corrupt, lax or non-existent. Countries such as Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Moldova seem to be amongst the favourites in Eastern Europe. In other locations, China, Brazil, Pakistan and more have growing reputations. This physical distance, when combined with additional layers of bureacracy, language barriers, corruption and political indifference, mean that investigations can grind to a halt while the international credit card fraud gang is able to continue with virtual impunity. Virtual distance is another problem. In the modern internet world it is relatively easy to establish a web presence in a far away location. Some of the favourites include islands in the Pacific and Caribbean. These islands are also often used for 'washing' the money or using it as a 'pass-through' account to make detection more difficult. If you can imagine for a moment the problems being faced by the police in this hypothetical situation: Victims are in the United States, therefore, so are the police. The trail leads to three separate websites in three different jurisdictions (one in Asia, one in the Pacific and one in the Caribbean), the owners of these websites are front companies in Belarus with (probably) ficticious names from the Ukraine and the money passes through three separate bank accounts (one in Asia, one in the Carribbean and one in Europe). As for the actual criminals, who knows? Under such circumstances, it is easy to see why car thieves will receive a higher priority from the local police, the odds of catching someone are much greater! This news story about a successful bust shows just how tough this is. As the article explains, it took raids in 14 countries and 2 years of investigation to close this gang. This complexity means that for the criminals, it is now preferable to find people in other parts of the world as it makes detection and prosecution much less likely.
We suggest that you look at our top 10 identity theft prevention tips for some ideas. To read more about credit card fraud, please follow these links:
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