Crist, Butterworth Join University Presidents to Unveil Anti-Fraud Website

A new online national clearinghouse and research center to help fight fraud and other economic crimes has been announced jointly by Florida’s Attorney General Charlie Crist, former Attorney General Bob Butterworth, T.K. Wetherell, president of Florida State University and Monsignor Franklin Casale, president of St. Thomas University.

The Center for the Study of Economic Crimes, jointly operated by FSU’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice and the St. Thomas University School of Law, will identify emerging trends in fraudulent activity, promote enforcement strategies and conduct academic research into the origins, patterns, effects and control of fraud. The Center will focus on fraud and other economic crimes affecting consumers, business and government with an emphasis on crimes that cross jurisdictional boundaries.
The Center’s initiatives include establishment of a new website, to help authorities fight fraud.

“Scam artists use the latest in technology to take advantage of unsuspecting victims,” Crist said. “This website provides investigators with a high-tech tool to fight back and regain the upper hand on behalf of the citizens of our state.”

“Fraud artists routinely move from one state to another and jump from one type of fraud to another,” Butterworth, Dean of St. Thomas University School of Law said. “The Center will provide information-sharing tools and a body of information to help monitor their patterns across geographic and level-of-government jurisdictional lines.”

“Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice is proud to be involved in this vital project,” Wetherell said. “With a long history as one of the most prominent criminology programs in the country, this college is well suited to gather and analyze data that will lead to the development of public policy aimed at eliminating the critical social problem of consumer fraud. This is truly research brought to life.”

The Center’s primary strategy includes three major initiatives:

The launching of http://www.FraudUpdate.com, a web-based tracking resource to highlight major cases and enforcement operations nationally and throughout the English-speaking world. The website also includes the latest alerts to help consumers and businesses avoid being victimized by scams.

– Periodic national conferences for investigators, prosecuting attorneys, corporate leaders, researchers and others to hear from experts about emerging patterns of fraudulent activity and to explore strategies for fighting it.

– Academic research into the phenomenon of fraud and related crimes, pattern detection, victimization and public policy issues.

The Attorney General’s Office provided the initial funding for the Center through a 2004 settlement with Sprint Communications that directed $250,000 to FSU. Additional funding was provided by the St. Thomas University Law School.

The Center’s internet-based information-sharing resource identifies newly published news releases, alerts, settlements and related documents on more than 300 government websites in near-real time. The system arranges these documents by topic, region and state, intermixing state, federal and international reports into a variety of channels. Full-text searching is available. At any given time, the repository contains more than 10,000 documents covering the most recent 18 months of enforcement activity.

The Center’s first conference – Economic Crime in the 21st Center: Emerging Trends in Consumer Fraud and Strategies for Enforcement, will feature speakers with noteworthy experience and expertise in the field. It is scheduled for March 17-18 at St. Thomas University in Miami. The Center already has sponsored original research by FSU’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, including a study entitled, “Sociolegal change in consumer fraud: From victim-offender interactions to global networks,” which is available on the website.

Topics Florida Fraud Education Universities