Arrest!

As a corporate investigator, I unfortunately see very little in the way of law enforcement involvement in my cases and even less in the way in the arrests. Recently however, I have seen an emerging paradigm shift that has lead to some very good results.

First off, I would like to state that the relationship I have been able to establish with the United States Secret Service (USSS) Electronic Crimes Task Force(s) (ECTF) has been fantastic. They are a great group, and working with them has truly been a pleasure. I have also had the pleasure of working with various other local and state agencies in the area of cyber crime, and again, the results have been very very good.

Before I talk about what we have seen, I would like to thank The Department of Justice, specifically Ovie Carroll for issuing the challenge to me about a year ago to start reaching out to law enforcement more to see what I could do to help. If not for that prompting, these relationships would not be possible, and there would be at least eight criminals still walking the streets.

The challenge issued by Ovie was quite simple...ask if you can help. As a forensic investigator, I am a bit more experienced and vetted than your run of the mill IT guy...although only slightly. I have an advanced degree (although not indicidate really of anything other than I took the time to go to graduate school), posess several industry standard certifications (which don't say much more than I took the classes and passed the tests), and wrote a book on forensics (which says little else than I like to write and got somebody to buy my writings. However, when you bring all of those qualifications together, and add to the mix the 100+ cases I have worked over the past five years, then I had something several PDs were interested in.

Shortly after contacting my local PD, I was vetted by the District Attorney as an Expert Witness, and got to work on two different cases. From a forensic standpoint, the work was pretty basic compared to some of the larger more complex breaches I have worked. But, I did get to see first hand how much of a benfit I could provide to the PD. Both cases ended in the arrest of the perps! Not too shabby!

That being said, over the past six months, my casework has directly aided in the apprehension and arrest of eight different criminals in the US and Europe! It's a great feeling to actually see my work helping to put bad guys away!

Now, I would echo the same challenge Oive gave to me a year ago. Contact your local PD. Let them know who you are and what you do. Maybe they will be interested, maybe not, but you won't know unless you ask. If they are, you may very well get the same opportunity I did and get to help put some pretty bad people in jail.

In my case, I still work Pro-Bono on cases involving crimes against children. As a father I find these types of crimes espically abhorrent, and gladly donate my time towards the investigation and apprehension of these animals.

Best of luck, and keep up the hunt!