An ‘Iceberg’ of Unseen Crimes: Many
Cyber Offenses Go Unreported
Utah’s chief law enforcement officer was deep in the fight against opioids when he
realized that a lack of data on internet sales of fentanyl was hindering investigations. So
the officer, Keith D. Squires, the state’s public safety commissioner, created a team of
analysts to track and chronicle online distribution patterns of the drug.
In Philadelphia, hidebound ways of confronting iPhone thefts let thrive illicit networks
to distribute stolen cellphones. Detectives treated each robbery as an unrelated street
crime — known as “apple picking” — rather than a vast scheme with connected channels
used by thieves to sell the stolen phones.
Each case demonstrates how the tools used to fight crime and measure crime trends in
the United States are outdated. Even as certain kinds of crimes are declining, others are
increasing — yet because so many occur online and have no geographic borders, local
police departments face new challenges not only fighting them, but also keeping track of
them. Politicians often promote crime declines without acknowledging the rise of new
cybercrimes.
Many of the offenses are not even counted when major crimes around the nation are
tallied. Among them: identity theft; fentanyl purchases over the dark web; human
trafficking for labor; credit card fraud and gift or credit card schemes that gangs use to
raise cash for their traditional operations or vendettas.
In a sense, technology has created an extraordinary moment for industrious criminals,
increasing profits without the risk of street violence. Digital villainy can be launched
from faraway states, or countries, eliminating physical threats the police traditionally
confront. Cyber perpetrators remain unknown. Law enforcement officials, meanwhile,
ask themselves: Who owns their crimes? Who must investigate them? What are the
specific violations? Who are the victims? How can we prevent it?
To many criminologists, academics and law enforcement leaders, crimes like car theft
are anachronisms in a modern era in which the internet’s virtual superhighways have
supplanted brick-and-mortar streets as the scenes for muggings or commercial
burglaries. They see dips in traditional violence and larceny as offset by a twin
phenomenon: A surge in the evolving crimes of the digital era, and the fact that they are
not fully captured in law enforcement’s reporting systems
“It’s the old iceberg metaphor,” said Nola Joyce, a former deputy commissioner of
Philadelphia’s police department. “What we know about is above the surface. But in
terms of value, and in terms of harm, a lot of that crime is below the surface.”
ReferenceBaker. Al, (2018), ‘An ‘Iceberg’ of Unseen Crimes: Many Cyber Offenses Go Unreported’,
The New Work Times, 5th February.