Ozichi Ozuomba

Academics for English

Thesis Statement Since the advancement of technology, cybercrimes & organized crime have
now made criminal activities easier.
Bastian woke up to a nightmare. The credit card company called to ask him when he plans to
start making payments. He was bemused for he recalls not using his credit card for the past five
months. To make things worse, he got another call from the bank stating that his funds have been
transferred to an island in the Caribbean. This is absurd! Bastian exclaimed. Since the
advancement of technology, cybercrimes & organized crime have now made criminal activities
easier.
Technology has caused cybercrimes to be prevalent in everyday life. The Federal Trade
Commission defines identity theft as when someone uses your personal information without
your permission to commit fraud or other crimes. The personal information used could be your
credit card and Social Security number. Criminals now have an easy way of stealing from
persons, instead of the traditional theft and robbery.
To see how significant this problem is in our everyday life, one must look at the statistics to get
a broader view and understanding. According to the Bureau of Justice (2013) An estimated 16.6
million people, representing 7 percent of all persons age 16 or older in the United States,
experienced at least one incident of identity theft in 2012 also An estimated 7.7 million people
reported the fraudulent use of a credit card and 7.5 million reported the fraudulent use of a bank
account such as a debit, checking or savings account. Another 1.1 million persons had their
information misused to open a new account, and about 833,600 persons had their information
misused for other fraudulent purposes.

Ozichi Ozuomba
Academics for English
The effects of this phenomenon are gloomy on those affected. Victims always report that they
do not get proper assistance from the credit grantors, credit rating agencies and banks. They
describe difficulty in reaching the credit reporting agencies, and how they are treated
disbelievingly by some creditors. Victims also report that flagging their credit report for fraud
doesn't always stop the imposter from obtaining more credit. The money must be repaid by
someone and that person is the victim. They are threatened with law suits, garnished wages, and
having their homes taken away from them. This experience automatically ruins the victims life,
because a situation like this takes years to overcome.
As technology is progressing, it has caused organized crime to advancing with it. Organized
crime is a group of people that embark on criminal enterprises for profit. An example of this
group is the Mafia. Crime syndicates such as the Mafia have expanded from their normal
operations such as loansharking, racketeering and extortion to new operations such as internet
gambling. According to the Slate Newspaper (2011), the Mafia engage in unlawful internet
gambling and betting. The way in which this is done is, they set up websites in Costa Rica one
of several South American and Caribbean countries where online sports betting are legal, and to
process online bets placed back home in New York. The Costa Rican computer servers
effectively operated as digital wire rooms, keeping track of stateside betting accounts while
bouncing data through different server nodes to evade U.S. law enforcement detection. With
technology or the use of the internet criminal groups like the Mafia can cross international
borders metaphorically making their operations much easier. This results in them to bypassing
laws in their own country.
With the growing increase of cybercrimes, one must be aware of it and must be able to combat
these wrongdoings. First people must be educated on what are cybercrimes. Then according to

Ozichi Ozuomba
Academics for English
the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (2012) use different user ID / password combinations for
different accounts and avoid writing them down. Make sure your social networking profiles (e.g.
Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, MSN, etc.) are set to private. Be aware that your mobile device is
vulnerable to viruses and hackers. Download applications from trusted sources. In addition to
what was previously stated, people should only use credit cards on trusted sites.
To conclude, the alarming statistics show that anyone can be a victim of identity theft. But
with that being said, there must be more protection for everyday users of the internet and persons
in general. The effects of identity theft can cause serious economic problems. The theft could
affect a whole family if the breadwinner was targeted. This leaves a family with a huge debt to
repay and children will bear that cost as well. In situations where they want to go to college or
university this is put off because of the parents obligations to repay the creditors. In addition,
cybercrime makes Caribbean and other developing countries look bad since crime syndicates and
hackers are using these countries to facilitate their operations. Law enforcement must not be left
behind as criminal are becoming more innovative.