Sheriff’s Office teaming with Secret Service

Sheriff’s Office teaming with Secret Service

Partnership will take aim at online criminals

news@theeveningtimes.com

Crittenden County Sheriff’s Department will be partnering with the Secret Service to help combat cyber and ID theft.

The department was given permission by the county Quorum Court to enter into a memorandum of agreement with the Secret Service to join the Electronic Crimes task Force.

The Sheriff’s department will send two investigators for training in Hoover, Alabama, and will also receive new equipment to help the department fight cyber crime — at no cost to the county.

“We will sign the agreement with them and we will assign detectives who will assist the Secret Service with investigations,” said Chief of Enforcement George Blair. “They will pay all expenses for training and equipment that will assist our investigations on other cases and will be very beneficial to Crittenden County Sheriff’s Department.”

The county will also be entitled to an equitable share in any seizures which result from those cases.

“I see no negatives on joining this task force,” Blair said.

Chief Investigator Todd Grooms said they found out about the program from Jonesboro Police Department, who are members of the task force.

“We ran across a case where we needed to get some information out of a cell phone,” Grooms said.

“In the past, you had to find somebody who had the equipment and the software and the training or send it to the FBI.

Jonesboro is a part of this task force so when we had a phone in a case we were working, we took it to Jonesboro. The very next day we had the information we were looking for instead of having to wait.

So they showed us the equipment they had.”

Grooms said cyber crime and identity theft is on the rise and local law enforcement doesn’t always have the know how or the technology to combat those crimes.

Joining the task force will give them training and the equipment to better protect county residents.

“Identify theft cases are at an all time high and every day Crittenden County citizens are victims,” Grooms said.

“With technology changing so rapidly, this type of crime had far surpassed our knowledge of how to fight it. So this is an opportunity to get in on the ground level and start learning how to fight cyber crimes and scams.”

Sgt. Brandon King of Jonesboro Police Depart- ment who is assigned to their High Tech Crimes Unit and Internet Crimes Against Children Section, said their department is called upon a lot to assist local and state law enforcement agencies to perform forensic evaluations of electronic devices of all kinds and works with the Secret Service on most all of their child pornography cases.

“They do provide the lion’s share of our forensic training and equipment these days,” King said.

“They have been a great resource and we wouldn’t have these capabilities that we have without them.”

Grooms said cyber crime crosses state lines and without these federal credentials they wouldn’t be able to go after thieves in other states.

“Cyber crime could be based out of Alabama but they are scamming people here,” Grooms said. “These federal credentials bypass all of that jurisdictional lines. We can target a person in Alabama and I can go down and arrest them because I am a part of this task force.”

County Judge Woody Wheeless said he believes it will be a great asset to help county residents.

“I talked to the Sheriff about this and I think it is a great idea,” Wheeless said.

“And the best part is it will get us some new technology to work with.”

Justice Hubert Bass agreed.

“I like the whole idea of it,” Bass added.

By Mark Randall