Page 88 - Albert News Today

>> we started to realize that the only way for us to really have an impact was to take over the website so that we could basically destroy the entire criminal network. and in this world, administrations ran the site. they were the bosses. so we needed albert to get promoted up through the ranks to become an admin. his ability to talk to the hacking world and our ability to give him the direction he needed elevated him very, very quickly through shadow crew. and he ultimately started gaining more...

Also used that online name to sell their fathers car online. so we were able to piece together pieces from the physical world with the criminal world to ultimately identify who they were. >> it was very much a cat-and-mouse game. but how we really broke the case, albert came up with an idea of a vpn. a vpn is a virtual private network, an anonymizing service that encrypts your internet activity, which means law enforcement cant see it. so we had built up alberts reputation so much on shadowcrew ...

Basically destroy the entire criminal network. and in this world, add minutes ran the site. they were the bosses. so we needed albert to get promoted up through the ranks and to become an admin. his ability to talk to the hacking world and our ability to give him the direction he needed elevated him very, very quickly through shadowcrew. and he ultimately started gaining more authority than other people to the point where albert was elected as an admin. >> albert worked his way up the organizati...

The shadowcrew website target list had boiled down to 28 people because those were the 28 people that we could identify. and we had to do a takedown. the idea was to lure those people online together into a virtual private network all at once for a big announcement, that albert was going to retire as the administrator of the site and hopefully turn it over to someone else. so we could do a simultaneous international takedown and arrest these people. a year and a half of an investigation, and all...

All they could see is that front page. >> the amount of information we were able to obtain, the success we had in identifying and apprehending the individuals were beyond our wildest dreams. >> out of the original 28 that were arrested, all 28 pled guilty because we built a phenomenal case against them. there was no way out of it. >> we wanted to send a message to these organizations that they werent untouchable by law enforcement, and law enforcement had the ability to pursue them and apprehend...

Together, but it came to a point where we werent making the arrests i thought we should be making, and albert was losing interest. so he wasnt showing up on time, wasnt showing up at all, and i didnt want him there if his head wasnt in the game and he really didnt want to be there. so in the spring of 2007, i asked him to leave, and we cut ties. >> millions of shoppers may have had their credit card information ripped off. somebody hacked into a computer system used by some popular department st...

Your computer. get out on the streets and arrest someone. it was not a traditional physical world that we were used to. >> the secret service does not like risk. failure is not an option. >> it was a complex case. it was were not really sure what you have. were not really sure if were going to support it. >> but without risk, theres no reward. >> nobody really knew where this investigation was going to end up, what we were going to be able to uncover, and i think thats whats intrigued a lot of p...

This alone. the agents attempted to talk to him and see whether or not he would cooperate and at that point in time the answer was no. so we left. time is on your side with him. when you look at somebody that is thin, seaems like a white collar criminal, seems scared, leave them there and let them get mixed in with hardened criminals. >> albert was a drug user. he was frail. he was very scared of going to prison. >> so it took 24 hours for him to call us and say i want to talk. and the first con...

Say the secret service has been monitoring your criminal activity, contact us before we contact you. we locked the website so nobody could access information on it anymore and all they could see is that front page. >> the amount of information we were able to obtain the success apprehending and identifying the individuals were beyond our dreams. >> all 28 pled guilty because we built a phenomenal case against them. there was no way out of it. >> we wanted to send a message to these organizations...

So we left. time was on our side with him. when you look at someone who is pretty thin, seems like more of a white collar type criminal, seems scared, the best thing you can do is to leave them there and let them get mixed in with some of those more hardened criminals. >> albert was a drug user. he was a very frail individual. he was very scared of going to prison. >> so it took 24 hours for him to call us and say, i want to talk. and the first condition of that conversation had to be that he ha...