Do you think, having an FBI agent as a friend on Facebook is cool? Maybe, but all the criminals boasting about their exploits will be in for a shock.
Us federal law enforcement agents are said to be going undercover with false online profiles in the social-networking sites – including Facebook, Linkedln, MySpace and Twitter – to search for evidence and witnesses in criminal cases, and in some instances, track suspects, and communicate with suspects and gather private information and communication map.
An internal Justice Department document obtained by the civil liberties group, Electronic Frontier Foundation, in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, describes the value of social networking sites to the government investigators.
According to the Associate Press, the document says Facebook is “often cooperative with emergency requests” from federal investigators while Twitter’s layers demand a warrant or subpoena before it will turn over customer information.
The document makes clear that U.S. agents are already logging on surreptitiously to exchange messages with suspects, identify a target’s friends or relatives and browse private information such as postings, personal photographs and video clips.
Among other purposes: Investigators can check suspects’ alibis by comparing stories told to police with tweets sent at the same time about their whereabouts. Online photos from a suspicious spending spree — people posing with jewelry, guns or fancy cars — can link suspects or their friends to robberies or burglaries, according to the source.
[Source: The Associate Press]
Italian police tracked down and captured one of the country’s most-wanted fugitive mafia suspects through Facebook.
Pasquale Manfredi, believed to be an influential figure in the ‘Ndrangheta mafia, was found in Calabria.
Manfredi is said to call himself as ‘Scarface’, after a 1983 epic movie with the same name starring Al Pacino as Godfather Tony Montana.
The 33-year-old, father-of-two faces charges of murder, mafia association and drugs trafficking.
Manfredi was arrested while trying to escape from the roof of an apartment building near the southern city of Crotone, BBC reports.
Authorities believe that Manfredi, who would log on under the Facebook name Georgie, received coded orders via the site and also kept in touch with mobsters, according to a report on The Sun.
Pasquale Manfredi was on Italy’s 100 Most Wanted List and had been on the run for a year with police wanting to question him in connection with two bloody Mob hits; the murder of rival mobster Carmine Arena who was taken out with a bazooka in October 2004 and Pasquale Tripaldi a year later.
A Sydney man was charged for allegedly trying to groom an 11-year-old girl for sex on Facebook.
The 27-year-old man allegedly made contact with the girl on Sunday March 7.
The man is accused of sending numerous messages via the site to the girl, and arranging a location to meet her for sexual activity.
The girl told her mother about the man and Mt Druitt police were informed.
Police officers arrested the man on Monday at a park in Emerton, and later seized a computer from his Bidwil home.
He was charged with travel to meet a child groomed for sexual activity. He was given bail and will appear in Mt Druitt Local Court on March 30.
A Briton sex offender admitted the kidnap, rape and murder of Ashleigh Hall, 17, whose body was found in a farmer’s field near Sedgefield last October will be serving a minimum of 35 years.
The Telegraph reports that Peter Chapman, 33, evaded police for 13 months after breaking the terms of his Sex Offenders’ Register order by failing to notify a change of address.
Chapman allegedly posted a photograph of a bare-chested, good looking boy in his late teens on Facebook to snare Ashleigh Hall.
Graham Reeds QC, prosecuting, said Chapman was obsessed with sex and was trying to meet her from the very start.
When Chapman realized that she was unlikely to go with him when she see that he was nothing like the Facebook image, he invented “Pete’s Dad” to collect her from her home which Mr Reeds described as a “calculated and wicked” plan.
Chapman picked Ashleigh up near her house and drove her to a dark and secluded lay-by on October 25 last year where he committed the crime.
Since the age of 15, he has been the subject of several sexual assault investigations, and in 1996 he was jailed for 7 years for raping two prostitutes at knifepoint.
Brevard County school officials are investigating a threatening Facebook post against a school teacher by one of her students.
The student wrote on Facebook, “Hey, I want to kill Mrs. Bowen. Does anybody want to help?” said attorney William Whitacre.
Apparently, the student at Edgewood Junior/Senior High School in Merritt Island didn’t want teacher Kathy Bowen to return to school after a short leave of absence.
An attorney for Mrs Bowen says she was informed about the online threat after she returned from her short leave.
The student is also said to have discuss the ways he would carry out the killing or keep Mrs Bowen from coming back, on Facebook.
A Brevard County Sheriff’s Office spokesman says the student isn’t facing criminal charges.
The district could pursue expulsion, if approved by the School Board, depending on the outcome of the investigation.
[source: Orlando Sentinel]
38-year old Paul Franco of New York allegedly hacked into his girlfriend’s Facebook account and demanded ransom to allow her to re-assume control of her profile.
Account owner Jessica Zamora-Anderson, 30, alleged that apart from the many changes he made to her personal information in the account, he changed her sexual preference to gay and accepted various requests for relationship with women.
According to the the New York Post, she said she met Franco on Facebook in November 2008 and claims to be repeatedly mistreated physically by Franco during their relationship.
She also told the source that she even after repeated attempts to end their relationship, she failed because of fears that Franco would release a sex tape of them that he claim to have made.
Franco didn’t received any cash from Anderson for hijacking the account, but was instead charged with coercion and harassment after his girlfriend went to the police.
Anthony Stancl, 19, who used Facebook to blackmail fellow New Berlin Eisenhower High School students into sexual acts with him in 2008, was sentenced to 15 years in prison and another 13 years of extended supervision Wednesday, according to the Journal Sentinel Online.
Judge J. Mac Davis, Waukesha County Circuit, imposed the sentence saying Stancl had proven that he was manipulative, excessively self-centered and could still be dangerous.
“I am afraid of what he can and might do,” said Davis.
Stancl posed as a female on Facebook and persuaded at least 31 boys to send him naked pictures of themselves. He then used those pictures to threaten and blackmail at least seven boys, ages 15 to 17, into performing sex acts.
Stancl pleaded no contest in December to two felonies, including repeated sexual assault of a child. He is said to have apologized to the victims and their families, and his own family before the judgment was passed.
James Grenfell, of Braintree, Essex, was arrested in Scotland for having sex with a 13-year-old Devon girl whom he met via Facebook.
The 22-year-old man has been jailed for 18 months after admitting having sex with the girl.
He admitted to three charges of sexual activity and a fourth charge of meeting a child following sexual grooming at Exeter Crown Court according to the source.
Det Sgt Brian Slade of Devon and Cornwall Police’s child exploitation unit said after the case: “The internet is a wonderful resource which provides a fantastic opportunity for learning and communication.
“Unfortunately, this does also present opportunities for those with a sexual interest in children – grooming is a very worrying concept for any parent.
“One of the most important things is to ensure your children are chatting to people they know in the real world, not purely in the virtual world.
“If they do not, they can never be really sure who they are talking to.
A chartered accountant of Indian-origin was stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend after he saw pictures she posted on Facebook with a new man.
Apparently, Mathurasingh and Bristol met in Trinadad and continued their relationship even after she came to Britain in summer 2008, Denison added.
Paul Bristol, 25, flew from him home in Trinidad to London to try and win Camile Mathurasingh back after she had ended their long distance relationship.
According to Times online, the jury was told that Mr. Bristol had bombarded Ms. Mathurasingh with text messages and telephone calls, including 37 in one day, before flying to London.
Simon Denison, QC for the prosecution said, “Only he can say what happened between them in the minutes before he killed her and what led him to kill her.
“But it may become obvious he did so in a frenzied attack with a knife. He stabbed her about 20 times in the neck and chest and back and hip and leg. She died on the floor of the kitchen,” the court was told.
The incident apparently came to light when Bristol, who was taken to the hospital after his car crashed, confessed to police.
Bristol denies murder but admits manslaughter.
