Meet the ‘geek squad’ charged with stopping the most tech savvy criminals in their tracks
HOW MOBILE PHONES ARE HELPING POLICE IN THE FIGHT AGAINST CRIME
Crime Reporter THEY are the everyday essential most of us will not leave the house without.
But mobile phones can also provide police with all the evidence they need to snare even the craftiest of crooks.
As thieves, paedophiles and fraudsters move from the streets to the web to commit their crimes, police are also harnessing high-tech crime-fighting methods in a bid to keep up with a new breed of cyber criminal.
Today in the latest of our Cyber Crime series, the Chronicle goes behind the scenes at Northumbria Police’s Digital Forensics Unit as staff and officers reveal how offenders’ phones, computers and tablets are providing the clues they need to bring them to book.
And the former cop who runs the facility, in Byker, Newcastle, said there was little criminals could hide from his techsavvy team.
Jerry Hewitt said: “When people have tried to hide stuff our team is very good at finding it. We can break 99% of passwords. The work is quite dynamic. You never know what you are going to get. I don’t think anyone really knows how much of a fingerprint they leave on their devices.” Based at Byker Police Station, the Digital Forensics Unit is home to a team of 33 officers and staff members. The team is headed up by Mr Hewitt, a retired police officer who returned to the force as a civilian staff member after 30 years as a cop. He said: “I joined in 1977 when there was only one computer in the police station.” These days Mr Hewitt is in charge of some of Northumbria’s most high-tech equipment, and a team of crimefighting boffins that are affectionately called the ‘geek squad.’ The team provide a range of support to investigations across the force, while also focusing on cyber crime, such as fraud or online grooming. The unit’s specialist staff work closely