As members of the FBI Cyber Task Force, county officers Jasmine Fleet and Gregory Depew will be 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 also will gain access to federal resources to conduct digital forensic investigations and trace cryptocurrency, the department said.
Last year, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received almost 900,000 reports of cyber-related crimes nationwide, leading to more than $12 billion in losses, according to Special Agent in Charge William J. DelBagno of the FBI Baltimore Field Office.
In Baltimore County, residents reported about 1,700 cybercrimes, such as scams, malware, ransomware and data breaches, over the last four years, DelBagno said at the news conference.
“When you look at Baltimore County, there are so many vulnerabilities, like our many defense contractors, military facilities, medical facilities, schools, universities and colleges, federal campuses, libraries and don’t forget our large senior population,” Baltimore County Police Chief Robert McCullough said Friday.
The two county corporals are the first local law enforcement officers to participate in the federal cybersecurity task force in the region, a distinction McCullough called “a significant milestone” for the department. The FBI’s Baltimore Field Office encompasses both Maryland and Delaware, and there are more than 300 similar task forces nationwide.
“Quite often, these types of crimes take us outside of our jurisdiction,” McCullough said. “One of the things this does, is it enhances our ability to pursue criminals outside of Baltimore County, outside of the state of Maryland, across this country and quite frankly, across the globe.”
Fleet, who joined the department 14 years ago, and Depew, who has 19 years of service in Baltimore County, were picked after a “rigorous” selection process, the police chief said.
“Today’s partnership between the police department and the FBI to enable two of our corporals to train with and then join a federal cybersecurity task force is good for Baltimore County and it’s good for our country,” said Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr., a Democrat.
This spring, Pikesville High School athletic director Dazhon Darien was arrested after he was accused of creating a fake racist audio recording of the school’s principal. County police said Darien used artificial intelligence to make it appear that Eric Eiswert had made offensive statements about Black students and teachers and Jewish families in a taped conversation.
While DelBagno did not directly address the Pikesville case, he said the FBI is looking closely at AI technology, both for the agency’s ability to use it as a tool and to understand how criminals might abuse it. He added that the task force training will ensure members know how to handle emerging “products” like AI.
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