[ OUR OPINION ]
IDENTITY theft has become a major crime and threatens to spin out of control through the pilfering and use of stolen credit cards on the Internet. Hawaii residents are especially targeted by cybercrooks elsewhere because of the state's remote location, an impediment to law enforcement. The crime usually crosses state lines and international boundaries, and demands a greater federal effort to combat it. Identity theft needs
worldwide policing
THE ISSUE ID theft cases, particularly those involving the theft and use of credit cards on the Internet, are increasing rapidly.
Attorney General John Ashcroft recognized the problem earlier this month, noting that federal prosecutions increased from 569 in the 1999 fiscal year to 775 in 2000, 879 in 2001 and 816 after only seven months of the current fiscal year. He said as many as 700,000 people a year are victimized by identity theft.
The examples of identity theft cited by Ashcroft involved mainly people who committed the crime without the aid of the Internet. He cited a Chicago man who suffocated a homeless man and tried to have the victim cremated under the assailant's identity, and a hospital employee who stole the identities of 393 patients to obtain credit cards.
However, the problem is magnified to huge proportions on the Internet, where tens of thousands of credit-card numbers are stolen each week by hackers breaking into online merchants' computer systems. The stolen cards then are offered for sale in bulk on membership-only cyberbazaars.
Security experts say many of the buyers are from the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Asia, specifically Malaysia. They use the cards to make purchases on the Internet, have the cards fenced in the West or get cash advances directly from the credit-card accounts.
A survey conducted by Celent Communications, a market research firm, found that the fraud rate for Visa and Mastercard transactions on the Internet is 0.25 percent, more than triple the offline rate. While consumers are protected from liability, credit-card-payment fraud costs online merchants at least $1 billion a year.
Detective Chris Duque of the Honolulu Police Department says identity thieves' understanding of the complications in the investigation and prosecution of crime -- including extradition -- across remote jurisdictions makes Hawaii especially vulnerable. Figures compiled by the Federal Trade Commission rank Hawaii third among states in identity-theft complaints per capita. FBI statistics show Hawaii leading all states in Internet fraud complainants per capita.
Ashcroft called on Congress to enact longer sentences for identity thieves, but first they have to be caught and brought to justice. Heightened coordination of local police, the FBI -- through its wire-fraud jurisdiction -- and law-enforcement agencies in other countries, perhaps through Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization, is essential for identity theft in cyberspace to be brought under control.
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