U.S. officials have made more than 100 arrests in a major offensive against online fraud, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Thursday. Addressing a Washington press conference, Ashcroft said that since the start of the operation on June 1, authorities have arrested 103 people and secured 53 convictions for a series of cybercrimes that targeted 150,000 victims who lost more than 215 million dollars. "'Operation Web Snare' is the largest and most successful collaborative law-enforcement operation ever conducted to prosecute online fraud, stop identity theft and prevent other computer-related crimes," Ashcroft said. The United States' top law-enforcement official said two areas of special concern were identity theft and "phishing", which involves the sending of fraudulent e-mails that look like they are from bona- fide institutions and succeed in getting recipients to transmit confidential information. Ashcroft said about 10 million Americans had their identities stolen last year, resulting in fraudulent transactions of almost 50 billion dollars. -
