Inlander 03/06/2014 by The Inlander

each card was sold for anywhere from $20 to more than $100 per card. U.S. Attorney Durkan can speak to card theft not only as a prosecutor but as a victim. Mortifyingly, she admits, she was heisted by a street-level cybercrook, 43-year-old Ana M. Crisan of Renton, whose specialty was rigging walk-up and drive-up ATM machines with electronic “skimming” devices and pinhole cameras. That enabled her to obtain 237 bank account numbers and security codes throughout the West — Durkan’s among them. Before she was caught in 2012 and sentenced to four years in prison (the U.S. Attorney for Eastern Washington handled the case), Crisian managed to steal $125,000. About $1,000 of that was Durkan’s. “I, of all people, knew better,” she said. Yet who among us checks to see if their ATM is outfitted with a skimmer — a device deftly inserted into the card slot to record account numbers on a magnetic strip — or takes time to check for a tiny camera that records users punching their card security codes onto the keypad? (Thieves also use fake ATM’s — a realistic device that fits over the top of real ATM’s to record numbers and PINs — as well as skimmers that can be attached to cash registers). The experience did seem to energize Durkan for combat with digital criminals (because of her high profile as a cybercrime prosecutor, she has been targeted by other cyberfoes, including the hacker collective known as Anonymous). Today Durkan chairs or co-chairs several Justice Department cybercrime committees, and has helped draw up such federal measures as the President’s Executive Order on Cybersecurity and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Her office has brought charges against some prized cyberthieves and hackers, including Daniel Munteanu, a 29-year-old Romanian national awaiting sentencing in Seattle for scamming five eBay customers out of more than $120,000 last year. He was nabbed in Seattle attempting to board an international flight. Munteanu used counterfeit passports to open bank and mailbox accounts to pose as a seller of eBay merchandise — boats, cars, and farm equipment included. (He and co-conspirators pretended to be the sellers, and conned buyers into sending payments into his bank accounts — money he then quickly moved offshore). Another big-time cyberscammer, David B. Schrooten, a 22-year-old Dutch hacker known as Fortezza, received a stiff 12-year sentence in Seattle last year for trafficking in stolen creditcard numbers worldwide. In October, Charles T. Williamson, a 36-year-old California rap artist who performed under the name “Guerilla Black,” received a nine-year sentence as part of Schrooten’s crime ring. Durkan is a proponent of stiffer sentences for some Internet crimes. Last March she urged Congress to simplify some sentences and “enhance penalties in certain areas where the statutory maximums no longer reflect the severity of these crimes.” (She cited the five-year maximum imposed in cases where hackers break into databases and steal credit-card numbers, arguing they deserve more time.) She also urged lawmakers to make the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act subject to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), making conspiracy ...continued on next page

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