The Computer Crime Investigation Division of the Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigations Corps (CICPC) reinforces and maintains attention to complaints and queries related to crimes perpetrated through information and communication technologies, as reported by the commissioner general of this agency, Douglas Rico, in an interview for Venezolana de Televisión (VTV).
Rico highlighted the work carried out by the CICPC to deal with crimes of extortion, robbery, fraud, gender violence, kidnapping and others that are carried out through digital platforms.
He assured that this security body has the necessary tools to follow up on this type of crime and invited the population to file complaints. “The Computer Crime Investigation Division is located in Caracas, on Urdaneta Avenue. Complaints can be made from any CICPC headquarters and they will be sent to this office to be dealt with », he explained.
He clarified that any citizen can take what they consider to be evidence that they have been the victim of a computer crime to this investigation office, and there they will be guided by the officials to carry out the complaint. In addition, he expressed that the security agency stays in contact with the people and offers direct attention, even from social networks. “(We remain) in direct care for the people at the national level. Even from my personal account, @DouglasRicoVzla, we serve people and take their queries. From there we direct them to where they are required and, sometimes, once the matter is resolved, we publish the results anonymously, without publishing the names of anyone, to make it known to the people », he pointed out.
The director of the CICPC also highlighted the awareness campaigns carried out by the Comprehensive Crime Prevention Division, which focus on Venezuelan children and adolescents.
“Criminalistics goes to school” and “Don’t get tangled up with networks” are some of them. She mentioned that this last program has been one of the main ones in recent years. “We have created awareness campaigns in schools and colleges. We have 4 programs, the main one is “Don’t get entangled with the networks”, where we seek to inform how far they can be harmed by people who commit crimes on these platforms. We do a comprehensive job, we bring information to parents but also to children about the risk of the Internet.
He emphasized that this type of crime has increased during the confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic due to the increased use of social networks and other technological platforms.
“All this has increased in the pandemic. All other crimes decreased during confinement, but computer crime increased and mutated, “said Rico, who also gave an account of some modus operandi of computer criminals. “We have seen cyberattacks that are carried out with personal accounts that are hacked to carry out scams, extortion, identity theft and personal information. Also that the Facebook Marketplace platform is used to make physical deliveries of false sales; when people come to acquire the object they bought, they are victims of kidnapping », he added.
However, he assured that these crimes through the Marketplace have decreased significantly as a result of the strong information disclosure campaign carried out by the CICPC on Facebook and other social networks.
He reiterated the call for attention to parents, in the sense that children are also exposed to being victims of extortion crimes by digital means, since “there are people who pretend to be another child and ask them to send them photos without clothes, then they threaten to release the photos,” he explained.
He also highlighted the impact that social networks and other digital media can have, especially on adolescents, which is why the CICPC has developed a fifth crime prevention program called ‘Skills for Life’, “where we prevent adolescent is induced to commit harm against himself when parents detach him from his means of communication, such as the telephone or tablet, “he specified.
He stated that this program was created due to the increase in cases of suicide or attacks against the physical integrity of adolescents due to various contents of social networks.
On the other hand, Rico called on the population to be attentive to the way in which they handle their personal information on social networks, because “sometimes we ourselves have the possibility of falling.”
In addition, he assured that the different officials of the CICPC work to be increasingly reliable and effective for citizens, paying special attention to the control of irregular practices by officials. «The CICPC has men and women with high academic, work and personality capacity. We have a high degree of purification in this organization: we have an inspectorate that is like the police of the police. We also have an autonomous organization that evaluates each police officer externally, it is like an intelligence that measures the work of the police in the face of any malpractice », he detailed.
“I invite you to believe in the institutions of the State,” said Rico. He also emphasized that the Venezuelan people can and should always “denounce without fear, because fear favors impunity.”
