Each year, crime data geeks look forward to the publication of the CJIS "Crime in the United States" report. On September 30th, the FBI was able to share the Uniform Crime Report information for 2018, describing information about Violent Crime, Property Crime, Homicides, and Arrests gathered from most of the law enforcement agencies in the United States. UCR is old news though. Many short-comings in the system have led to changes which are adopted in the new NIBRS system, the National Incident-Based Reporting System. For people like me, who care about cybercrime, hacking, malware, and fraud, this is great news! Many budget decisions have been made over the years about how to allocate police resources based on UCR data, and NONE OF THE CATEGORIES I CARE ABOUT WERE PART of UCR! But NIBRS has many of those things, rolled up under the category "fraud."
Fraud Offenses are called "26" offenses and have the following breakdown:
- 26A = False Pretense / Swindle / Confidence Game
- 26B = Credit Card / ATM Fraud
- 26C Impersonation
- 26D = Welfare Fraud
- 26E = Wire Fraud
- 26F = Identity Theft
- 26G = Hacking / Computer Invasion
(The NIBRS User Manual has the complete list of codes for other offenses.)
Last year, students in my Criminal Justice 502 - Computer Forensics class at UAB (the University of Alabama at Birmingham) - attempted to study fraud statistics from the 2017 NIBRS data, and sadly, their conclusion was that they were dramatically under-reported, and if used at all, used only in a "rolled-up" capacity. With shame I mention that Alabama is one of the states boycotting NIBRS, calling it an "unfunded mandate" and refusing to participate. In the 2017 data, only the city of Hoover shared NIBRS-formatted crime statistics with the Department of Justice.
We are still looking forward to seeing the 2018 NIBRS data, which would normally have been released by now, but did get one early present from CJIS, in the form of FBI NIBRS data from each field office.
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| https://ucr.fbi.gov/ucr-statistics-their-proper-use |
As part of that caution, consider a couple numbers from the table below. While the average for all field offices was that 10.9% of all FBI arrest in 2018 were for "Fraud" categories, the Los Angeles Field Office number was more than double that amount, at 27.6%. Why? Is it because there is more fraud in LA than most places? Not really. Their "Fraud Arrests per 100,000 population" is 0.72, far below the average of 1.3 fraud arrests per 100,000. However, Los Angeles has a squad that includes agents dedicated to working "Business Email Compromise" and they have been doing an amazing job at that task. Because of the STRATEGIC FOCUS of the Los Angeles office, many criminals are arrested and charged there even when the victims may come from across the United States and the World.
Similarly, the Charlotte FBI office has one of the highest Fraud Arrests per 100k population at 4.72, second only to the Omaha office. In this case, local priorities, based on the city's reputation as a major banking center, with huge presence from Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and other national and global banks, may result in a greater emphasis on fraud investigations, and again, provide a nexus where criminals defrauding these major banks may be charged in Charlotte while attacking bank customers across the country.
Other office numbers may be skewed by the presence of an extremely gifted or well-funded state or local law enforcement agencies, which may work many cases at the state/local level that in other offices may have become federal cases.
So again, please don't use these numbers for "head-to-head rankings," but do enjoy seeing what is going on in YOUR FBI office! We look forward to seeing the full NIBRS data soon, but in the meantime, found the data below a fascinating representation of how fraud is fought by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
(Full FBI Arrestees by NIBRS Offense Code by FBI Field Office, 2018 available here)
| Field Office | Fraud Arrests | Total Arrests | Population | % Fraud Arrests | Fraud arrests per 100k population |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grand Total All Offices | 2,645 | 24,174 | 330,611,016 | 10.9% | 1.3 |
| Albany | 19 | 193 | 3,959,142 | 9.84% | 2.084 |
| Albuquerque | 11 | 368 | 2,095,428 | 2.99% | 1.905 |
| Anchorage | 3 | 110 | 737,438 | 2.73% | 2.458 |
| Atlanta | 86 | 635 | 10,519,475 | 13.54% | 1.223 |
| Baltimore | 20 | 397 | 7,009,889 | 5.04% | 3.505 |
| Birmingham | 16 | 153 | 2,885,679 | 10.46% | 1.804 |
| Boston | 78 | 515 | 10,654,326 | 15.15% | 1.366 |
| Buffalo | 28 | 318 | 2,745,324 | 8.81% | 0.98 |
| Charlotte | 22 | 548 | 10,383,620 | 4.01% | 4.72 |
| Chicago | 72 | 399 | 9,299,342 | 18.05% | 1.292 |
| Cincinnati | 23 | 257 | 5,973,003 | 8.95% | 2.597 |
| Cleveland | 40 | 426 | 5,716,439 | 9.39% | 1.429 |
| Columbia | 25 | 313 | 5,084,127 | 7.99% | 2.034 |
| Dallas | 42 | 556 | 10,937,892 | 7.55% | 2.604 |
| Denver | 55 | 400 | 6,273,301 | 13.75% | 1.141 |
| Detroit | 132 | 762 | 9,995,915 | 17.32% | 0.757 |
| El Paso | 13 | 217 | 1,280,400 | 5.99% | 0.985 |
| Honolulu | 19 | 92 | 1,420,491 | 20.66 | 0.748 |
| Houston | 45 | 348 | 8,739,890 | 12.93% | 1.942 |
| Indianapolis | 63 | 541 | 6,691,878 | 11.65% | 1.062 |
| Jackson | 19 | 230 | 2,986,530 | 8.26% | 1.572 |
| Jacksonville | 42 | 129 | 5,292,491 | 32.56% | 1.26 |
| Kansas City | 21 | 572 | 6,107,812 | 3.67% | 2.908 |
| Knoxville | 16 | 413 | 2,634,746 | 3.87% | 1.647 |
| Las Vegas | 13 | 294 | 3,034,392 | 4.42% | 2.334 |
| Little Rock | 11 | 209 | 3,013,825 | 5.26% | 2.74 |
| Los Angeles | 270 | 978 | 19,503,778 | 27.61% | 0.722 |
| Louisville | 17 | 177 | 4,468,402 | 0.96% | 2.628 |
| Memphis | 35 | 292 | 4,135,264 | 11.99% | 1.182 |
| Miami | 241 | 1048 | 7,101,580 | 0.23% | 0.295 |
| Milwaukee | 28 | 180 | 5,813,568 | 15.56% | 2.076 |
| Minneapolis | 35 | 620 | 7,253,491 | 5.65% | 2.072 |
| Mobile | 14 | 196 | 2,002,192 | 7.14% | 1.43 |
| New Haven | 24 | 315 | 3,572,665 | 7.62% | 1.489 |
| New Orleans | 13 | 234 | 4,659,978 | 5.56% | 3.585 |
| New York | 268 | 1466 | 13,464,042 | 18.28% | 0.502 |
| Newark | 55 | 533 | 8,055,342 | 10.32% | 1.465 |
| Norfolk | 15 | 108 | 1,759,484 | 13.89% | 1.173 |
| Oklahoma City | 20 | 252 | 3,943,079 | 7.94% | 1.972 |
| Omaha | 10 | 294 | 5,085,413 | 0.34% | 5.085 |
| Philadelphia | 106 | 723 | 9,948,745 | 14.66% | 0.939 |
| Phoenix | 34 | 773 | 7,171,646 | 0.44% | 2.109 |
| Pittsburgh | 40 | 543 | 5,517,325 | 7.37% | 1.379 |
| Portland | 32 | 303 | 4,190,713 | 10.56% | 1.31 |
| Richmond | 10 | 110 | 4,153,705 | 9.09% | 4.154 |
| Sacramento | 33 | 298 | 8,099,068 | 11.07% | 2.454 |
| Salt Lake City | 53 | 606 | 5,977,618 | 8.75% | 1.128 |
| St. Louis | 26 | 422 | 2,930,145 | 6.16% | 1.127 |
| San Antonio | 36 | 879 | 7,743,663 | 0.41% | 2.151 |
| San Diego | 33 | 384 | 3,529,064 | 8.59% | 1.069 |
| San Francisco | 71 | 342 | 8,425,135 | 20.76% | 1.187 |
| San Juan1 | 40 | 716 | 3,443,582 | 5.59% | 0.861 |
| Seattle | 34 | 359 | 7,535,591 | 9.47% | 2.216 |
| Springfield | 12 | 157 | 3,441,738 | 7.64% | 2.868 |
| Tampa | 30 | 800 | 8,905,254 | 3.75% | 2.968 |
| Washington, Dc | 76 | 671 | 3,306,951 | 11.33% | 0.435 |
Article Link: http://garwarner.blogspot.com/2019/10/fbi-fraud-arrests-by-field-office-2018.html