In order to prevent and prosecite online fraudulent activity going through our website, we cooperate with the govenment and federally-funded, non-profit organizations whose mission is to prevent, investigate, and prosecute economic and high-tech crimes.
The Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC)
The Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC) is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C).
IFCC's mission is to address fraud committed over the Internet. For victims of Internet fraud, IFCC provides a convenient and easy-to-use reporting mechanism that alerts authorities of a suspected criminal or civil violation. For law enforcement and regulatory agencies at all levels, IFCC offers a central repository for complaints related to Internet fraud, works to quantify fraud patterns, and provides timely statistical data of current fraud trends.
The Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC) operates as part of a cyber-community watch. The self-policing efforts of honest and vigilant Internet users result in potential fraudulent activity over the Internet being brought to the attention of law enforcement through the IFCC. The IFCC does much more than just collect complaint information. It ensures that the information, along with additional investigative information developed by IFCC personnel, is disseminated to the appropriate agencies and that identified fraud schemes are either prevented or mitigated. The IFCC processes and refers all complaints it receives, regardless of the alleged dollar loss. In its first year of operation, the IFCC received 36,410 complaints, resulting in 30,503 valid criminal complaints. The IFCC turns complaints into reports and forwards them to, on average, two or three law enforcement agencies. The referral process has spawned hundreds of criminal investigations throughout the country. The FBI uses the data to identify multiple victims, various crime trends, and same-subject cases, thus initiating the investigative phase of the IFCC’s operations.
NW3C (National White Collar Crime Center)
The mission of NW3C is to provide a nationwide support system for agencies involved in the prevention, investigation, and prosecution of economic and high-tech crimes and to support and partner with other appropriate entities in addressing homeland security initiatives, as they relate to economic and high-tech crimes.
NW3C are a federally-funded, non-profit corporation whose membership primarily comprises law enforcement agencies, state regulatory bodies with criminal investigative authority, and state and local prosecution offices.
While NW3C has no investigative authority itself, its job is to help law enforcement agencies better understand and utilize tools to combat economic and high-tech crime.
FBI (The Federal Bureau of Investigation)
The mission of the FBI is to protect and defend the United States against terrorist and foreign intelligence threats, to uphold and enforce the criminal laws of the United States, and to provide leadership and criminal justice services to federal, state, municipal, and international agencies and partners. The organization with these responsibilities has not always been called the FBI.
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