FBI appoints county police officers to cybercrime task force

(TNS) — Two Baltimore County police corporals will join a federal task force to combat cybercrime, officials said Friday at a news conference.

As members of the FBI's Cyber ​​Task Force, district agents Jasmine Fleet and Gregory Depew are being trained as “cyber investigators” at the Secret Service's National Computer Forensic Institute in Hoover, Alabama, the police department said in a news release.

Fleet and Depew will also be given access to federal resources to conduct digital forensic investigations and detect cryptocurrencies, the department said.

Last year, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received nearly 900,000 reports of cybercrime nationwide, resulting in more than $12 billion in damages, according to Special Agent in Charge William J. DelBagno of the FBI's Baltimore field office.

In Baltimore County, residents reported about 1,700 cases of cybercrime over the past four years, including fraud, malware, ransomware and data breaches, DelBagno said at the press conference.

“When you look at Baltimore County, there are so many vulnerabilities, such as our many defense contractors, military installations, medical facilities, schools, universities and colleges, federal campuses, libraries, and not to mention our large elderly population,” Baltimore County Police Chief Robert McCullough said Friday.

The two county corporals are the first local law enforcement officers to participate in the region's federal cybersecurity task force. McCullough called the award a “significant milestone” for the agency. The FBI's Baltimore field office has a presence in both Maryland and Delaware, and there are more than 300 similar task forces nationwide.

“These types of crimes often take us outside of our jurisdiction,” McCullough said. “One of the consequences of that is that we can now pursue criminals outside of Baltimore County, outside of the state of Maryland, across the country and, frankly, across the world.”

Fleet, who joined the department 14 years ago, and Depew, who has 19 years of service in Baltimore County, were chosen after a “rigorous” selection process, the police chief said.

“Today's partnership between the police and the FBI, which allows two of our corporals to train with and then join a federal cybersecurity task force, is good for Baltimore County and good for our country,” said Baltimore County Democratic Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr.

In the spring, Pikesville High School athletic director Dazhon Darien was arrested after being accused of creating a fake racist audio recording of the school's principal. County police said Darien used artificial intelligence to make it look like Eric Eiswert made offensive statements about black students and teachers, as well as Jewish families, in a recorded conversation.

While DelBagno did not address the Pikesville case directly, he said the FBI is closely monitoring AI technology, both to understand how the agency can use it as a tool and how criminals might abuse it. He added that the task force training will ensure members know how to handle new “products” like AI.

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