Police from Australia and the United States have joined forces to pool their resources to fight a number of crimes which cross international borders, including identity crime and cyber-crime. We watch these changes with interest as they apply to fighting the increasing instances of identity crime which can result in victims being stung with bad credit and being banned from borrowing for 5 to 7 years when frausters use their good name to take out credit.

By Graham Doessel, Founder and CEO of MyCRA Credit Rating Repairs and www.fixmybadcredit.com.au.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in Washington on Friday to share intelligence in order to fight many types of crime, including identity crime and cyber crime, ninemsn reports in its story AFP, FBI pool resources against crime.

The MoU, called Combatting Transnational Crime, Combatting Terrorism and Developing Law Enforcement Cooperation focused on collaboration between agencies in terrorism, illicit drugs, money laundering, illegal firearms trafficking, identity crime, cyber crime and transnational economic crime.

It also consolidated AFP and FBI cooperation in the exchange of information, resources and technical and forensic capabilities.

The Australian Government made changes to Australia’s laws in June last year, to allow for the international collaboration of information on cybercrime. The Cybercrime Legislation Amendment Bill 2011, amended several laws in order to comply with the only international treaty on cyber-crime.

This was done in the hope of coming up to speed with other countries in the fight to tackle an international wave of cyber-attacks.

Cyber-crime and identity crime are a global phenomenon, and potentially this relationship between Police forces could improve the chances of tracking fraudsters, and potentially lead to more arrests.

Currently, identity crime and cyber- identity crime is often one of those largely ‘untrackable’ crimes  – especially if it originates overseas. It can lead to the victim having any number of credit accounts taken out in their name, which can result in the victim being stuck with wrong defaults on their credit rating, or a bad credit rating they didn’t initiate, and a whole heap of trouble recovering their good name. Often Police are unable to prosecute anyone, and it is up to the identity theft victim to go about proving they didn’t initiate the bad credit.

It will be interesting to see whether more arrests can be made or whether the sharing of information could deter cyber-criminals in the future.

If you have been a vicitm of identity crime or cyber-crime, we would be interested to hear from you, and the process you went through. Did you let Police know of the attack?

If you need help with a bad credit rating you didn’t inititate which would point to identity theft, whether inititated on our shores or overseas, you may be able to get assistance in recovering your good name. You may be eligible for a Victims of Commonwealth Identity Crime Certificate, and/or you may be able to get help from a professional credit repairer to help with getting those wrong defaults removed from your credit file.

Contact our credit repair team on 1300 667 218 to get advice.

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