The US Secret Service arrested 28 people in late October in conjunction with identity theft across 6 countries. The suspects are accused of working in an organized global cyber crime group: charges include computer fraud and identity theft.

"Information is the world's new currency, these suspects targeted the personal and financial information of ordinary citizens as well as the confidential and proprietary information of companies engaged in e-commerce," stated Secret Service Director W. Ralph Basham.

Operation Firewall began over a year ago, in July 2003, when investigators targeted computer underground groups Shadowcrew, Carderplanet and Darkprofits. The three groups ran websites where they exchanged new methodologies of committing fraud and hijacked personal information. Their criminal activities focused on electronic theft of personal information, credit card fraud.

Cracking the case involved support from international law enforcement agencies such as United Kingdom's National Hi-Tech Crimes Unit, the Vancouver (British Columbia, Canada) Police Department's Financial Crimes Section, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Europol, as well as police agencies in Belarus, Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Ukraine. Even with the combined efforts of all of these groups, the investigation was a highly technological and time-consuming process amassing enough data to fill a university library.