DEA data thief sentenced to 27 months

R. A. Hettinga rah at shipwright.com
Wed Dec 18 16:00:58 EST 2002


http://theregister.co.uk/content/55/28621.html

DEA data thief sentenced to 27 months
By Kevin Poulsen, SecurityFocus Online
Posted: 18/12/2002 at 10:38 GMT

A 14-year veteran of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) who
fled to Mexico to avoid federal computer crime charges was sentenced in a
federal court in Los Angeles on Monday to 27 months in prison for selling
information on private citizens he plundered from sensitive law enforcement
databases.

Emilio Calatayud, 36, admitted in a plea agreement last August to raiding a
variety of systems to investigate claimants in over 100 workers
compensation cases being handled by Triple Check Investigative Services for
unnamed insurance carriers. Triple Check paid the former agent at least
$22,500 for the data over a six year period ending in 1999, according to
court records.

The purloined data came from three law enforcement computers to which
Calatayud had otherwise lawful access: the FBI's National Crime Information
Center (NCIC), which maintains nationwide records on arrest histories,
convictions and warrants; the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications
System (CLETS), a state network that gives agents access to California
motor vehicle records, rap sheets and fingerprints; and a DEA system called
the Narcotics and Dangerous Drug Information System (NADDIS), described by
a Justice Department Web page as a database of "over 3,500,000 individuals,
businesses, vessels and selected airfields."

Some privacy advocates have cited the Calatayud case to highlight the risks
posed by the growing number of law enforcement databases housing
information on individuals, and made widely accessible with minimal
security.

The prosecution was briefly derailed last February, when Calatayud skipped
out on a $100,000 property bond on what was to have been his first day of
trial. He fled to Mexico, where four months later he was picked up in
Guadalajara by Mexican federal police acting on information developed by
the United States Marshal's Service.

Officials haven't revealed how Calatayud was tracked down, but as part of
the plea deal they agreed not to prosecute the former fed for kiting checks
through his Bank of America account while a fugitive.

Prosecutors also dropped wire fraud and computer fraud charges in the
agreement. Calatayud plead guilty to bribery, tax evasion and failing to
appear in court.

In addition to the jail time, federal judge William J. Rea ordered
Calatayud to pay a $5,000 fine.

©SecurityFocus.com


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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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