Cyber Crimes Section

The HSI Cyber Crimes Center's **Cyber Crimes Section** (CCS) is responsible for developing and coordinating investigations of Immigration and Customs violations where the Internet is used to facilitate the criminal act. The CCS investigative responsibilities include fraud, theft of intellectual property rights, money laundering, identity theft and benefit fraud, the sale and distribution of narcotics and other controlled substances, illegal arms trafficking and the illegal export of strategic/controlled commodities and the smuggling and sale of other prohibited items such as art and cultural property.

The CCS is involved in the development of Internet undercover law enforcement investigative methodology, and new laws and regulations to strengthen U.S. Cyber-Border Security. C3 supports the ICE Office of Investigation’s (OI) domestic field offices, along with ICE foreign attachés offices with cyber technical, and covert online investigative support.

* **Operations Apothecary**: The CCS, the ICE Commercial Fraud Office and the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center have partnered together and launched a comprehensive Internet pharmaceutical initiative designed to target, arrest and prosecute individuals and organizations that are involved in the smuggling of counterfeit pharmaceuticals of a controlled and non-controlled nature as well as scheduled narcotics via the Internet. The focus is also on the affiliates of the rogue pharmacies that are typically operated by criminal enterprises whose sole purpose is to generate large sums of money, with no regard to the health and welfare of the public.
* **Intellectual Property Rights**: The CCS has encountered thousands of web sites based in the United States, as well as foreign that are engaged in the sale of counterfeit merchandise (including music and software) via the Internet. The CCS continues to work closely with the National IPR Coordination Center, the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) at the DOJ, and industry representatives to identify web sites responsible for the sale of the counterfeit items.
* **Arms and Strategic Technology**: The CCS supports ICE’s mission to prevent proliferate countries, terrorists, trans-national criminals from obtaining strategic materials, funds and support and to protect the American public from the introduction weapons of mass destruction and other instruments of terror from entering the United States.
* **Identity Fraud Initiative**: The availability and use of fraudulent identification documents has always been a concern to the law enforcement community. While traditionally available from street sources, fraudulent identification and travel documents, of all types, are also readily available for sale via the Internet. In the post 9-11 world, fraudulent identity and travel documents are of an even greater concern to ICE because of the alarming threat they pose to ICE's primary mission of protecting the United States, and its citizens, from threats arising from the movement of people and goods into and out of the country. With addressing these documents and their threat in mind, the CCS has sought to identify sources for fraudulent identity and immigration documents on the Internet. Those sources identified are pursued for criminal violations either locally or referred to other ICE field offices.
* **Cybercrime and Incident Response Teams (CIRT)**: The Cybercrime and Incident Response Teams (CIRT) are special investigative teams which respond to cyber crimes and incidents where public safety is at imminent risk. Examples include cyber terrorism, cyber intrusions and attacks on government and private sector targets and identifying threats to public safety from posts made online. The CIRT was also active during the pandemic in combating counterfeit PPE related scams.