Searching for patterns is a common step in many investigations. If a crime has been committed, have there been similar crimes that might have been committed by the same person or persons? That kind of analysis may lead to a known past offender, or it might lead to a new perpetrator who was previously unknown.
As criminals move from the street to the internet, that same principle holds true. If there is good evidence to suggest that a social media account is linked to a crime, the person behind that account may have committed similar crimes that haven’t been linked. Tracing that account back to a real-life person and then locating other accounts connected to that person can establish the full scope of their crime and justify additional charges or heavier sentencing. While that project might have been difficult or impossible in the past, modern social media intelligence tools make it a viable avenue for investigation. Here, we dig into how.
Tracing an Online Persona To a Real Person
Social media holds tremendous promise as an intelligence source, but there are significant challenges involved in turning the flood of social posts into actionable intelligence. One of the biggest is simply connecting the name on an account with a specific person in the real world.
Many social platforms permit anonymous or pseudonymous accounts, and those that do require real names are usually not difficult to fool. When you allow for the added difficulty of multiple people having the same or similar names, it can be very challenging to make the connection between a person and a social profile through traditional investigative techniques.
This is where modern, agile intelligence tools like Spokeo for Law Enforcement become a factor. With Spokeo, you can search an account’s username just as easily as a phone number or someone’s legal name. The results draw on Spokeo’s billions of data points and unusually deep social media coverage (120+ platforms) to connect that account back to the phone number or email that was used to open it. Unless the account was set up using a “burner” phone or a disposable email, the search results will usually also connect the phone or the email address to the person who owns it.
Typically, a Spokeo search will also reveal alternative phone numbers and email addresses for that person, as well as social media accounts tied to those devices. In short, it gives investigators the ability to identify and follow up on a suspect’s entire online presence.
Uncovering the Full Scope of a Case
Any social account connected to a crime yields usable information, even if you haven’t yet linked it to a suspect. Anyone who interacts with that account is a potential victim or accomplice, and you can follow up on those with further Spokeo searches. Perpetrators very often include genuine personal details in these conversations, simply because it’s less effort than fabricating every detail of their online persona. Those details can be matched to your suspect and help confirm an ID in the later stages of an investigation.
Identifying which contacts of these newly discovered accounts might be previously unknown victims is important, second only to identifying the perpetrator. Identifying additional victims, securing their statements, and collecting any evidence they can provide may help investigators ultimately identify a suspect. It also helps ensure that after the arrest is made, the scale of their criminal activity (and the damage it caused) is clear to the court. That, in turn, leads to heavier sentencing and less advantageous plea deals. In the 2014 case of serial predator Jordan Kirby, for example, Facebook interactions provided by one victim’s parents led to his arrest and a 29-year sentence.
A final benefit of this added effort is that it may identify contacts who are still engaged with the suspect but who haven’t yet become victims. Not only can this prevent a crime, but it also gives investigators a chance to set up a sting and make an arrest. In every respect, this is a solid win for law enforcement and for the community at large.
Teasing Out Webs of Connections
There’s one additional way social media can be used to broaden the scope of an investigation, and that’s by taking a second look at the offending account’s contacts. This time, rather than sifting them for potential victims, investigators would focus on potential accomplices or other offenders.
Some offenders, most notably in the area of child sexual abuse or exploitation and drug trafficking, form loose-knit networks over time. In the case of the former, some actively exploit children, while others provide a market for the resulting images and videos. Surprisingly, much of this contact takes place (relatively) openly on social media. Detailing a few hours of an investigator’s time to run Spokeo searches on a suspect’s (or known offender’s) social media contacts can tease out those connections, identifying potential buyers or similar offenders supplying material to the buyers.
Once those people are identified through Spokeo searches and (where possible) existing law enforcement resources, investigators can proceed through normal channels to secure search warrants and subpoena digital records from internet and phone service providers and the social platforms themselves.
To illustrate just how effective these broad-based investigations can be, take New Jersey’s 2017 “Operation Safety Net” as an example. Using on- and offline investigations, agents identified offenders from coast to coast, eventually resulting in the arrests of 79 individuals.
Equipping Your Social Media Investigations
It is possible to conduct successful social media investigations without specialized software tools. The time and resources required for manual online investigations are formidable, and the likelihood of missing crucial information is high, but they can be done.
That said, with purpose-built social media intelligence tools becoming widely available, it’s not necessary to pursue online investigations the hard way. Spokeo for Law Enforcement provides LEAs with technology that enables detailed, rigorous social media investigations at usage-based subscription pricing that any police force can work with. Better yet, its clean and simple interface (and Spokeo’s world-class onboarding and support) can make it easy for even the most tech-averse investigators to use.
To learn more about how Spokeo can help you break cases, to see a demonstration of the product, or to arrange a no-cost trial, please reach out to our team using the contact information on our Law Enforcement page.
Sources
Federal Bureau of Investigation: Sexual Predator Sentenced to 29 Years; Targeted Young Victims Through Social Media
NJ Department of Law and Public Safety: Attorney General Porrino Announces Arrests of 79 Alleged Child Predators & Child Pornography Offenders in “Operation Safety Net”