At now, the FBI is trying to bring to justice about 123 people who are accused of various cyber crimes, in hope to put them to trial in the United States.
Unit chief of the International cybercrime coordination cell, Steven Kelly spoke at the RSA Conference, IT News. According to a statement given by him, this number is from a recent fugitive apprehension initiative which seeks to understand who all of these charged individuals in cyber crime cases are across the FBI.
Kelly said, “I think it is a massive number. It’s a lot of people that who are not brought to justice just because they are across the world. They are in a place where we do not have an extradition treaty, and that is a problem.
The FBI unit chief, alongside representatives from European Cybercrime Centre and US Department of Justice, has taken the opportunity to express their concerns about a large number of cybercriminals on the loose. “We’re not going to build a deterrence model for the cybercrime if we can’t get our hands on these people,” Kelly pointed out.
According to him, spending two years making a case, bringing it to a grand jury and getting charges is not going to do much if they can’t actually get the people responsible and other criminals will continue acting just as before, with impunity and from safe havens where the FBI can’t reach them.
Another issue here is the fact that most extradition treaties were not written with cyber crime in mind and are often limited to what they cover. John Lynch, chief of the computer crime and intellectual property department in the DoJ’s criminal division explains that many countries have restrictions about extraditing their own citizens and could, instead, be asked to pursue charges against them in their land.