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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 8:37 pm
Time: 8:37 pm
Results for online crime
2 results foundAuthor: Samani, Raj Title: Digital Laundry: An analysis of online currencies, and their use in cybercrime Summary: The European Central Bank (ECB) points out notable differences between virtual currency and electronic money schemes. Electronic money uses a traditional unit of currency and is regulated; virtual currencies are unregulated and use an invented currency. Virtual currencies offer a number of benefits to customers: They are reliable, relatively instant, and anonymous. Even when privacy issues have been raised with particular currencies (notably Bitcoin), the market has responded with extensions to provide greater anonymity. Market response is an important point because regardless of law enforcement actions against Liberty Reserve and e-gold, criminals quickly identify new platforms to launder their funds. As a platform grows in popularity, so too will attacks and subsequent law enforcement actions. We saw this recently with Liberty Reserve and e-gold, and the recent cyberattacks against Bitcoin. Increasing popularity also raises the attention of law enforcement officials. Despite such platforms establishing their operations in countries considered as "tax havens," its operators are still subject to investigation, and possibly arrest. This concern recently led to the Russian Foreign Ministry warning its citizens who suspect they may be arrested to avoid countries with extradition treaties with the United States. The warning cited the arrest of Liberty Reserve's founder as an example. Although money laundering and cyberattacks are the focus of this paper, electronic currencies also act as the main method of payment for illicit products such as drugs, as well as for other products and services that enable cybercrime. We discussed products and services in Cybercrime Exposed: Cybercrime-as-a-Service; we'll look at drugs in this paper when we discuss the Silk Road market. The Silk Road is the best known online drug market but it is only the tip of the iceberg, as there are numerous such marketplaces. Regardless of the level of scrutiny by regulators and law enforcement, criminals will continue to migrate activities to alternate platforms. They have done this with Liberty Reserve and e-gold, to name two examples; simply shutting down the leading platform will not solve the problem. Details: Santa Clara, CA: McAfee, 2013. 17p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 10, 2014 at: http://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/white-papers/wp-digital-laundry.pdf Year: 2013 Country: International URL: Shelf Number: 132315 Keywords: CybercrimeDigital CrimeFinancial CrimeMoney LaunderingOnline Crime |
Author: Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) Title: Blood e-Commerce: Rakuten's profits from the slaughter of elephants and whales Summary: The Rakuten Group, via its wholly owned Japanese subsidiary Rakuten Ichiba (www.rakuten.co.jp), is the world's largest online trader in elephant ivory and whale products. Rakuten Ichiba sells thousands of elephant ivory products, made from the tusks of African elephants that are currently being slaughtered at the rate of up to 50,000 a year in the worst ever poaching crisis. Hundreds of whale products, including endangered fin whale from Iceland and products from the whale and dolphin drive hunts in Taiji featured in the documentary The Cove, are also being sold on Rakuten Ichiba. It is the biggest known online retailer of elephant ivory and cetacean products in the world. The Rakuten Group, through Rakuten Ichiba, is directly responsible for these sales and is therefore directly profiting from the killing of elephants and whales. In recent years, international condemnation of Japan's whale and dolphin hunts, along with concerns about pollution and food safety, have led Japan's leading supermarket chains - AEON, Ito-Yokado, Seiyu and Uny - to prohibit the sale of whale or dolphin products in thousands of stores. Japan's leading seafood companies Maruha, Kyokuyo and Nippon Suisan have all ended the production of canned whale meat and other frozen whale products. Two major online retailers - Amazon and Google - have followed suit, stopping all sales or advertisements of whale, dolphin and ivory though their Japanese e-commerce sites. Rakuten must do the same. In June 2013, a search for 'whale meat' on www.rakuten.co.jp yielded 773 whale products for sale, while the broader term 'whale' generated over 1,200 food products. Many of these originated from baleen whales, namely fin, sei, minke and Bryde's whale, which are all protected species under the moratorium on commercial whaling established by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) since 1986. These species are also afforded the highest level of protection by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which prohibits international trade. Despite this, a number of companies were selling endangered fin whale imported from Iceland. Many products were from toothed cetacean species (known as 'small cetaceans'), namely Baird's beaked whales and pilot whales. A further 14 products were not listed with a species name, contrary to the requirements of Japan's labelling laws. Some of the whale products sold by Rakuten Ichiba are highly polluted with mercury and pose a significant risk to the health of consumers. Scientists have documented mercury levels more than 1,000 times higher than the Government of Japan's safe advisory level in species caught in Japanese coastal waters. Nine whale products were purchased from Rakuten Ichiba in 2013 and tested for mercury. Eight of these exceeded the Japanese national limit for total mercury concentration of 0.4 parts per million (ppm), with one sample of pilot whale meat having a shocking mercury concentration of 9.5 ppm, more than 20 times higher than the Japanese regulatory limit. The average mercury level of the nine products was 4.2 ppm, more than 10 times higher than the regulatory limit. In February 2014, searches for 'ivory' on www.rakuten.co.jp yielded more than 28,000 ads for elephant ivory products, indicating that a significant demand for elephant ivory persists in Japan. Items found include name seals, jewellery, musical instruments, accessories and chopsticks. Over 95 percent of products available were name seals, or 'hankos', used by individuals and companies to sign documents with their signatures engraved into the ivory. Much of Japan's trade in ivory hankos is supported by illegal African elephant ivory - between 2005-10, illegal ivory accounted for up to 87 per cent of the ivory hankos produced in Japan. Japan also has a specific demand for 'hard ivory' from Central Africa's endangered forest elephants and there are many hard ivory products available for sale on Rakuten Ichiba. In response to devastating poaching levels in the 1980s, the international ban on elephant ivory trade went into effect after the 1989 CITES Appendix I listing of African elephants, leading to a dramatic reduction of elephant poaching across much of Africa as ivory prices plummeted. However, the ban was undermined when CITES later approved two international sales of African ivory, first to Japan in 1999 and then to Japan and China in 2008. Existing legal domestic markets in countries such as Japan continue to fuel the demand for ivory. Japan's domestic ivory controls have failed to comply with the requirements of CITES to effectively control the trade in ivory and prevent poached ivory from entering the domestic market. Large numbers of poached ivory tusks have been laundered into Japan's domestic market as a result. Africa's elephants are being rapidly wiped out by poaching to meet the escalating demand for trinkets made from their tusks. By listing ivory products for sale, Rakuten Ichiba is helping to stimulate the market for ivory products in Japan and perpetuate illegal ivory flows and the poaching of elephants. Prominent internet retailers such as Amazon, Google and eBay have banned the sale of elephant ivory on all their controlled sites, including their Japanese sites. The Rakuten Group should follow suit and become part of the solution rather than contributing to the poaching epidemic. As the Rakuten Group directly profits from Rakuten Ichiba's sale of elephant and whale products, it is responsible not only for facilitating the sale of products from endangered and protected species but also for allowing the sale of food products which are highly contaminated with mercury and a health threat to the people consuming them. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) is calling on the Rakuten Group and its global affiliates and subsidiaries, including Rakuten Ichiba, to immediately enact a permanent ban on the sale of all elephant, whale and dolphin products. Details: London: EIA, 2014. 16p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 4, 2014 at http://www.eia-international.org/wp-content/uploads/Blood-e-Commerce-FINAL.pdf Year: 2014 Country: International URL: http://www.eia-international.org/wp-content/uploads/Blood-e-Commerce-FINAL.pdf Shelf Number: 132409 Keywords: Animal PoachingElephantsIllegal Ivory TradeOnline CrimeOnline TransactionsWhalesWildlife Crimes |