Citing an example, he said, recently a woman approached a police station to file complaint with regards to a derogatory email but the police refused to entertain her complaint. "In such a scenario, we cannot blame the security authorities. There is an exigent need to establish what can be called as Cyber Police which will enable to monitor online activities, besides tracking down the source of abusive emails. In other words, the police will only register a complaint provided a person admits to his or her crime, thereby referring the case to prosecution."

Confess
"Supposing a person refuses to confess to his crime, then it becomes impossible for the authorities to register a complaint for the simple reason that they do not posses the required know-how and equipment to track down the source of an email, especially if the sender uses only his initials or if the mail is anonymous," he added. Asked to comment on the decision of some prosecutors to draft a law with regards to Internet crimes, Abdal said he was unable to comment on the issue as he was yet to see the contents of the draft, which must be submitted to the parliament before being reviewed by the legislative committee.

Stressing that many unsolicited emails were originating from Africa, particularly from Nigeria, Abdal noted that one Kuwaiti lady was recently duped by some unscrupulous elements after she fell prey to a fraudulent email.
He observed that the lady was sent an email indicating that she had won $ 50 million and -- as a first step towards claiming the prize money -- she was required to send lottery organizers a certain fee in order to set in motion her paperwork. Abdal added that the unsuspecting victim was initially asked to send KD 150 and that the amount was to be sent to a person in the UK.

"When she sent the money, she was told that the money was insufficient and was asked to remit an additional KD 300. Moreover, she sent the money through a medium which makes it impossible to ascertain the identity of the receiver. She was later invited to the UK to collect her prize money." "When she reached the UK, a certain George got in touch with her and took her to a shabby restaurant and she was told that the award ceremony would be kept low profile. She was then asked to fork out additional money towards certain other procedures." He said that the lady continued to pay money until the amount reached KD 15,000 and that the woman nearly spent over two months in the UK.

Loan
"Fed up with the dilly dallying, she returned to Kuwait. The sad thing is that the lady took loan from a bank to pay the fraudster with the aim of bagging the prize money. Though, she was issued receipts by the fraudsters, they are only in the form of computer print-outs. I am now coordinating with the authorities in the UK to track down the source of the email." Had there been a Cyber Cell in Kuwait, then it would have helped in determining the source of the said email, he added. Abdal said that some fraudsters are using emails whose validity does not exceed more than a month, thereby making it impossible for the concerned authorities to identify the source.

"One of my female clients was being targeted by some people who tampered with her images making her look obscene and her pictures were being circulated in chatrooms. When we got to the bottom of the case, we found out that her obscene images were being circulated through an email account which was valid only for 30 days." Commenting on blogging, he said some people in Kuwait are misusing the medium and that he supports freedom of speech provided it is regulated. "Sometimes it becomes paramount to prosecute bloggers, especially if they indulge in character assassination."

Francis A. Clifford Cardozo

© Arab Times 2008

 

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