In direct response to the global rise of internet-enabled crimes1 responsible for billions of dollars in losses and severe emotional impacts to people around the world, a new nonprofit has been formed to pursue justice for victims of these crimes: Intelligence for Good.
Founded by Gary Warner, Robin Pugh and Ronnie Tokazowski, Intelligence for Good aims to make the internet a safer place for everyone, and to ensure that criminals are not only brought to justice but fear the consequences of scamming innocent people. To achieve this, Intelligence for Good leverages data collected from victims, industry and open sources to conduct analysis and investigation that will expose the individuals and networks behind these crimes and empower legal teams with needed information to pursue cases against them.
“Most victims of internet-enabled crimes suffer without hope of recovery or justice, and face devastating financial and emotional loss. The Intelligence for Good team is dedicated to rewriting the endings of these stories, and preventing others from falling victim to these scams,” said Pugh, Executive Director of Intelligence for Good and CEO of DarkTower. “We are building a sustainable ecosystem of justice that listens to the voices of victims, investigates how these crimes work, trains cybercrime intelligence analysts and legal professionals with an investigative mindset, and works toward disruption in concert with law enforcement.”
Intelligence for Good is focused on the following initiatives:
- Identifying criminal typologies and emerging techniques used to commit scams, everything from romance and cryptocurrency scams to identity theft and call center scams.
- Providing legal teams with the resources needed to identify the appropriate path for either civil or criminal prosecution, prepare for and expedite the prosecution of criminals to ensure that all options for disruption and recovery are pursued.
- Supplementing the efforts of law enforcement and agents of justice – who are outnumbered in addressing the volume of crimes committed against individual citizens – with additional investigation resources.
- Connecting victims to respected resources for support and recovery so they know they are not alone, and can provide valuable information that will contribute to the process of justice.
There are many factors that make it difficult to resolve online scams, including siloed reporting of individual crimes where one agency does not share with another, and law enforcement jurisdiction challenges with many of these crimes crossing state and international borders. Intelligence for Good serves as a resource to connect the dots between individual victims and the groups behind these targeted attacks, revealing the full scope and interconnected impact of these crime networks.
Warner, who serves as Director of Intelligence at both Intelligence for Good and DarkTower, adds, “Most of these crimes have no ‘natural predator’, meaning they can be conducted with practically no risk to the perpetrator. The social media platforms and dating apps being used to facilitate these crimes have no incentive to take down fraudulent profiles, especially when the total number of user accounts contributes to a site’s revenue performance and is tied to their shareholder value. At Intelligence for Good, we do not think it is acceptable for criminals to have no fear of being caught, and as such are stepping in to stop these scammers.”
Intelligence for Good expands on the work of proprietary social media analysis tools created by Warner, and the data collection of a 500+ member Business Email Compromise (BEC) Working Group started by Tokazowski over a decade ago. Today, this includes terabytes of data on terrorist/extremist groups, cyber and financial criminals, traffickers, transnational organized criminal groups, BEC attacks and the mule accounts leveraged to cash out their funds, as well as data contributed by victims, nonprofits, banks and other corporations on a variety of internet-enabled crimes.
With a framework in place to effectively collect, preserve and analyze this data for the purposes of identifying criminals and their networks, Intelligence for Good can identify fresh websites, emerging methodologies, and techniques being used to commit scams. Through social network analysis, many of these scammers can have true identities revealed and networks of fake or bot accounts exposed. Further validating their work, Intelligence for Good was named the winner of an October 2023 Gula Tech Foundation grant competition for supporting the National Cybersecurity Strategy pillar of disrupting threat actors.
Intelligence for Good is also actively vetting and partnering with trusted victim support advocate organizations that are highly trained and capable of providing direct support to victims. Crime victims will be referred to those partners for support, and those partners will provide critical data back to Intelligence for Good for further analysis and investigation. If you or someone you know was the victim of an internet-enabled crime, please contact us here.
1https://www.ic3.gov/Home/AnnualReports
About Intelligence for Good
Intelligence for Good, a nonprofit, pursues justice for victims of internet-enabled crimes such as romance scams, cryptocurrency scams, and call center scams. Through data collection, analysis and investigations, Intelligence for Good identifies criminal typology and emerging techniques being used to commit scams; provides legal teams with the resources needed to prepare for and speed up the prosecution of criminals; supplements the efforts of law enforcement and agents of justice who are outnumbered in addressing the volume of crimes committed against individual citizens; and connects victims to respected resources for support and recovery.
Intelligence for Good is dedicated to equipping the next generation of cybercrime fighters, intelligence analysts and investigative attorneys with the skills necessary to address today’s digital landscape of cybercrime. Built on over a decade of research and intelligence on specific scams and scammers, and utilizing proprietary analysis tools, Intelligence for Good is fighting no-natural-predator crimes and producing results for victims. For more information, or to report an unresolved crime, please visit intelligenceforgood.org/.
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