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An article relating to this blog post on Finextra:

Police bust cyber fraud ring

An online criminal forum that was used by thousands of fraudsters to buy and sell stolen credit card and bank details has been shut down following a two year FBI-led undercover operation.


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Dark Market is a Minnow, Perhaps Wall St Needs FBI Attention

Given that Wall St has done more damage to the economies of the world than a thousand Osama Bin Ladens could dream of or any Dark Market cyber gang could imagine, perhaps the FBI could turn it's attention to Wall St.

Given the excesses of financial wizards and the trillions of dollars of ordinary people's savings decimated by their greed it seems pointless to concentrate on a few million pounds from amatuer fraudsters when others are doing it with trillions.

Good work FBI, and you should be proud, however I think you will have better results and could more effectively spend your time looking into the excesses of Wall St where the real crimes have been committed. It's time to forego the pocket change and concentrate on the serious professional criminals.

Failing to do so will send the wrong message to a generation of young people disenfranchised by criminal bankers and brokers and could ultimately lead to open season for fraud by a generation who rightly feel their inheritance and futures have been stolen by criminals in expensive suits.

It's time for a clear statement of values, anything less undermines our whole civilisation.

 

PS.

An answer from the FBI in the NYTimes the next day. Understaffing is blamed after agents were diverted to terrorist investigations leaving the likes of Bernie Madoff to run wild and perpetrate frauds which make internet and credit card scams look like peanuts.

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Comments: (4)

A Finextra member
A Finextra member 19 October, 2008, 23:37Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up 0 likes

The FBI have replied via the New York Times - budgetary restraints and a focus on terrorism is to blame.

A Finextra member
A Finextra member 20 October, 2008, 00:46Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up 0 likes

They're trying to do they best they can with lmited resoures.

A Finextra member
A Finextra member 20 October, 2008, 10:53Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up 0 likes

Sorry, but there is a small but important difference ...

Stealing credit card details, or buying such data to commit fraud is clearly illegal.

Being greedy is not illegal so far. Gambling with other people's money (including their savings for retirement) has not been illegal so far either.

It was "just" ethics that the stupid public trusted would rule the financial world, and hoped ethics would prevent such activities at least on a larger scale. 

So we now know that ethics alone did not work. We now know that we all (including the political leaders) had been fooled by some people in expensive and respectable clothing who were displaying reputable manners and pretended to be honest and knowledgeable about their trade. And there were many others in that trade who really were honest and knowledgeable, but most of them bowed to the pressure to deliver similar results as the crooks did.

So we now learned that there need to be more rules and regulations, and there needs to be real punishment for the violators.

Thatcherism is dead. Trust is good, but control is better. Too much control may be harmful too - but at this time, we are very far from such a situation.

A Finextra member
A Finextra member 20 October, 2008, 13:02Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up 0 likes

You make some good points, however there are no doubt many who warned of the danger of the exotic products. In many cases those warnings were over-ruled and pressure brought to bear and as the edge got closer there were some who knew and failed in their duty, lining their pockets instead .

Some businesses have been run by men without ethics for too long.

That is not to say that there are no good men, it's just that some of them remained silent.

They should all be encouraged to do otherwise.

There were of course many banks run by wiser men and they too have been harmed, even though they resisted the less ethical plays.

We surely can't reinforce bad behaviour, and we need to see where the nexus of the problem was, in order to prevent a repeat in the future.

One thing is for sure, only in a fantasy world could you expect the man in the street to refuse persistent well marketed easy money, so the blame must be with the ones handing it out.

Journalists and publishers are no less to blame, acting as the rah! rah! cheer squads for the real estate shonksters and hyping up the market beyond sanity.

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