Pubdate: Tue, 09 Jul 2002
Source: Business Week (US)
Copyright: 2002 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.businessweek.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/753
Author: Kevin Poulsen
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/corrupt.htm (Corruption)

FUGITIVE DEA AGENT ARRESTED IN MEXICO

Former federal agent had skipped out on charges that he sold information 
from law enforcement computers to a private investigations firm

A 12-year veteran of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) who 
went on the run last February rather than face federal computer crime 
charges was arrested in Guadalajara, Mexico last month, and is now being 
held without bail in Los Angeles where he faces new charges for his brief 
turn as a fugitive.

Emilio Calatayud, 35, skipped out on a $100,000 property bond on what was 
scheduled to be his first day of trial on felony charges of illegally 
selling sensitive information about private citizens from law enforcement 
computers.

Prosecutors say Calatayud peddled data to Los Angeles private 
investigations firm Triple Check Investigative Services for six years 
beginning in 1993, supplementing his government paycheck by anywhere from 
$1,080 to $8,500 in cash each year. In all, he allegedly earned at least 
$22,580 with his computer access, at a rate of between $60 and $80 per target.

By those figures, Calatayud would have run queries on approximately 300 - 
400 people who were being investigated by Triple Check -- though presumably 
not all of those people had records to be found.

The purloined data allegedly came from three law enforcement computers to 
which Calatayud had otherwise lawful access: the FBI's National Crime 
Information Center (NCIC), which maintains nationwide records on arrest 
histories, convictions and warrants; the California Law Enforcement 
Telecommunications System (CLETS), a state network that gives agents access 
to California motor vehicle records, rap sheets and fingerprints; and a DEA 
system called the Narcotics and Dangerous Drug Information System (NADDIS), 
described by a Justice Department Web page as a database of "over 3,500,000 
individuals, businesses, vessels and selected airfields."

PRIVACY ISSUES. A January, 2001 grand jury indictment charged Calatayud 
with wire fraud, tax evasion, bribery, and violation of the Computer Fraud 
and Abuse Act in connection with the alleged data selling scheme. The 
federal case progressed as far as empanelling a jury, but on his February 
5th, 2002 trial date the former agent disappeared.

After contemplating trying Calatayud in absentia, Judge William Keller 
instead dismissed the jury and issued a bench warrant for the missing 
defendant.

The former agent's flight ended on June 6th, when Mexican Federal Police 
arrested Calatayud in Guadalajara, and wasted no time in putting him on a 
plane to the U.S., according to the Los Angeles U.S. Attorney's office. "He 
was expelled by Mexico -- in other words, sent out of the county -- the 
same day," says spokesman Thom Mrozek. A federal judge later ordered 
Calatayud held without bail, and he was transported back to Los Angeles.

The former agent plead not guilty to all charges, including a new charge of 
failing to appear in court, on June 17th. His trial is now set for August 
6th. Calatayud's attorney John Yzurdiaga -- who briefly represented hacker 
Kevin Mitnick in 1996 -- did not return phone calls.

If the indictment proves accurate, the Calatayud case highlights the risks 
posed by the increasingly large number of law enforcement databases that 
house information on individuals, and are widely accessible with minimal 
security, some privacy advocates say.

"When you have all this aggregation of data in these large databases, with 
literally hundreds of thousands of people with access to it at the same 
time, it creates a situation where data is vulnerable," says James Plummer, 
director of the libertarian National Consumer Coalition's Privacy Group, 
which named Calatayud its "Privacy Villain of the Week" when he went on the 
lam in February. "These federal agents aren't all saints. And the more 
information on citizens that's in there, the more likely that things like 
this are going to happen."

In an unrelated data-selling scandal last year, prosecutors charged Maria 
Emeterio, an officer with the Nevada Attorney General's Office, and Mary 
Ellen Weeks, an employee of the Las Vegas municipal court system, with 
selling over 100 NCIC records to a Las Vegas private investigator for $100 
a piece. Both women and the private investigator, a former FBI agent, plead 
guilty in the case.
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