The FBI became involved in the recent Houston-Iraq case. Most local police, although aware of cellular phones' popularity, are not yet briefed on the massive fraud that is taking place. If some of these high-tech units in these metropolitan police departments would get involved in this kind of fraud, I think they would help themselves catch some of the people they've been looking at in their drug investigations,'' said Devaney, who hopes to develop a partnership between the cellular industry and federal and local law enforcement. One problem is that the state of the art advances so quickly that it's difficult for officials to keep pace. While the industry stops one leak, technically skilled criminals are chipping away elsewhere.
Several companies are in a race to offer switching equipment capable of defeating tumbler fraud.
GTE, which is experimenting with such things as credit card cellular phones in rental cars and in-flight cellular calls, plans to be the first, hoping to perfect the technology later this year. A spokesman for an industry association said, however, that its impact won't be widely felt until the middle to late 1990s. Until it arrives, it's like war. And like war, the citizens are being asked to endure hardships. One such hardship is call blocking.