| CRIME ON THE WEB |
| Friday, 23 February 2007 | |
John Pugh has just returned from Washington as part of a small delegation of MPs sent over to discuss the future of the Internet and internet crime with Congressmen, IT and security experts, and law enforcers. The party were accompanied by the head of Scotland Yard's e-crime unit and met with the FBI. Reporting back , John Pugh said:"Our general conclusion was that few of the crimes committed over the internet are new. Fraud, blackmail, theft and human exploitation have simply found new and more subtle ways of being carried out. However with the Internet the perpetrators of crimes can often be in far away countries out of the reach of local and national police forces. Everyone in Southport is vulnerable to internet fraud and scams, and may even find that their own computers have unknown to them been hijacked to send out messages elsewhere - possibly information about their passwords or bank details." The MP revealed that he himself had even received a death threat via the internet. "Last April I received an e-mail from someone who described themselves as 'your killer' threatening to stab me. I have little doubt that the person was local though the police traced the actual e-mail to a BT call box in Bold St. Liverpool." "Keeping ahead of the new criminal methods presents ever new challenges to the Police". PHOTO: JOHN PUGH in front of Congress |