by Shreya Faria
‘Anyways, I am planning to meet the officer of cybercrime, let’s see if he has any information on the matter, you want to join?’ added Harvey.
Harvey and Sam both left to meet the officer. Sam wasn’t able to concentrate on his office work until this matter was solved. What disturbed him more was the message he had read on Rachel’s cell phone on the previous night.
Chapter 32
Sam and Harvey reached the Los Angeles Police Department cybercrimes unit. Sam observed the building keenly. He had never visited police departments; thanks to this scam he had a chance now. Like a kid, he was fascinated with its blue and white walls and its uniformed denizens and the plethora of work stations, hi-tech computers and other electrical devices, TV screens attached to scanners, and a lot more.
‘Yes, how may I help you? Whom do you want to meet in here?’ asked one of the officers from the front desk.
‘I would like to meet Commander Jason of the cybercrime unit; I had called, he will be expecting me,’ said Harvey. He had known of the officer for a long time but never had a chance to meet him in person. Commander Jason had worked to enhance the office’s cybercrime division.
‘Okay, please wait here, I will let you in some time,’ said the officer.
‘So why are we here, Harvey?’ asked Sam. He knew it would be the last thing for Harvey to take police help in any of his cases.
‘This scam is too big to solve all alone. Things are getting messier day by day. It is no more one man’s work to sort this thing out. We need hi-tech technology and police access to nail the blackmailers. And I know Commander Jason to be very efficient; moreover, he is a humble man and always ready to help private investigators. I think he will surely help us nail the blackmailer without anyone knowing about it,’ said Harvey.
‘Hmm ... I think you are right,’ said Sam and kept wandering in the department again.
‘Yes Mr Derrick, tell me what brings you here,’ Commander Jason said as he came out of his cabin. Seeing him, Sam, who was surveying the departments precincts, came towards Harvey to greet the officer.
‘Commander Jason, finally we meet, I have heard so much about you and your work ... meet Sam, he is my friend,’ said Harvey. Sam and Commander Jason greeted each other with a handshake, and they all proceeded towards his cabin. The officer was of medium build, his deep-set eyes reflected his experience and years of hard work, and he had a pleasant personality. In all, an assuring personality.
‘You would surely know about the Ashton Martinson scam; actually, many of my clients have been a victim of it, including my friend Sam. I need your help with any information you have about the hackers or anything else regarding the case.’ Harvey informed Commander Jason that Sam too was in soup, he trusted the LAPD man not to let any information out.
‘Yes Mr Derrick I know about it since the time the news broke and you will be happy as we got some information on it from Toronto today itself. You can relax Mr Geller, nothing will go out from this cabin,’ said Commander Jason as he saw a little hitch on Sam’s face after Harvey informed him about Sam. Harvey was very excited to hear what the officer had to say about this whole scam.
‘They hackers call themselves the impact team and was probably came together only to carry out an attack on the infidelity websites. The impact team had sent a note earlier to the management of the parent company of Ashton Martinson warning them that the group had hacked the company’s infrastructure and advised that they take down three of their dating websites failing to which their customer’s records would be exposed publicly. The company refused, and thus, after a month, the team carried out their threat.
The police in Toronto verified their past records, but there is no evidence of the group stealing any sort of data elsewhere before they declared themselves with the Ashton Martinson hack,’ said Commander Jason. Sam and Harvey were shocked listening to him, especially Harvey, who had not expected so much information. He actually felt a little ashamed that he was way behind in his sleuthing; he had not been able to find any clue or ever heard of the impact team. But he was also relieved that at least he had got some more information about the blackmailers, which he could not have managed to crack alone.
‘Sir, but how did they get the records of the accounts which were deleted before the scam? I had deleted the account, and still they are blackmailing me ... how?’ asked Sam, quite curious.
‘It’s very simple Sam; while creating an account you had to pay a certain amount of money, right?’ asked Commander Jason.
‘Yes, I had to pay some to open an account, and thus I gave the detail of my credit card,’ answered Sam.
‘Perfect, now that’s the flaw which the website has. The website deleted only the profile data, it kept the payment data on file. Thus customer’s real names, credit card data, and their billing addresses remained on the company’s server. So even if customers used a pseudonym to open an account, their real name remained in the system,’ explained the officer. Sam and Harvey had a poker face after hearing to this.
‘Oh so silly of me, why didn’t I give a thought on this one before?’ said Sam. The officer pitied his state, half smiling.
‘It’s quite natural Sam, a basic human tendency; rather, let me call it as basic men’s tendency to fall out for some fun. And thus, why would you give a deep thought about it or about the scam in the first place?’ said Commander Jason. Harvey was quite convinced by his explanations.
‘After the warning, they started slowly releasing bits of data to warn that they were not bluffing. The impact team appeared to be out for justice and not the money because normally the hackers steal data or resell them on the Darknet,’ added the officer.
‘But ... this hack is so huge. How could a company as big as Avid Media be so careless about its data security?’ asked Harvey.
‘The chief executive of the Rainbow Corp. which owns Ashton Martinson thinks that there is at least one person who is involved, a person who might not be an employee but certainly had touched their technical services,’ said the officer.
‘So the peripheral damage of people whose partners were cheating on them, the sleepless and cheated other halves are the ones which led to this big historic scam?’ said Sam. Harvey and Sam enquired on the questions which troubled them after the scam.
‘The data firstly leaked via the Tor network as it is best for concealing the location and the identity of the user. The forensic security specialist who is working on the case said that the impact team had taken full precaution to ensure their dark web identities were not matched with their real-life identities. The other smart move the impact team did was dumping the data via a server which only gave basic web and text data, thus leaving very little forensic information. Moreover, the data files were pruned of extra information about who stole the data and how the whole hack was carried, thus leaving no sufficient clues,’ said Commander Jason.
‘So we are still short of information to get hold of them?’ asked Harvey.
‘Yes kind of, but you never know, nothing in this cyber world is safe, anyways I am expecting some more information on this by late evening, so if you can come back again I could help you out,’ said the officer.
‘Okay, that’s superb, thank you very much for all this information, we will come back by tomorrow morning if it is fine with you, Commander?’ asked Harvey.
‘Yes sure, that will do,’ said Commander Jason. Sam and Harvey thanked him and took their leave for the time being.
Chapter 33
‘Sir, should I repeat the beer?’ asked the bartender after Harvey and Sam had almost finished three bottles of beer.
‘Yes please, they rightly say ... beer doesn’t ask silly questions, beer understands!’ said Sam. There was a lot to discuss. The two had decided to relax and talk over some beer.
‘It’s time to talk to Rachel buddy, and if you don’t intend to inform her soon then I myself will tell her the truth,’ said Harvey hoping that Sam would take him seriously.
‘Y
eaaaaaa I know Harvey, I was planning to tell her when I found out about her transferring money to some Indian bank account, so I just don’t know what is happening and what if she was che...’ Sam said something and stopped himself before he told Harvey. But Harvey understood what he wanted to tell.
‘Relax brother, don’t overthink. What if just like you and Jay even she might have opened the account for fun, to check out, and now she is stuck just like you? Why are you coming to the conclusion of cheating when even you did the same thing?’ said Harvey in a firm voice. They discussed the same things for a while before they left for their house. Sam had eventually decided to tell her everything soon. Third time.
The next morning, they were ready quite early to visit Commander Jason at the LAPD cybercrime unit.
‘Good morning folks, I was not expecting you guys so early in the office,’ said the officer sarcastically. The officer noticed their puffy eyes due to a lot of alcohol and lack of sleep.
‘Good morning Commander, you have no idea how much help your information is. I alone could have never found out so much. Police help is mandatory in this matter,’ said Harvey.
‘Sir, so have you got any further information on this matter?’ asked Sam out of curiosity.
‘They are waiting for more leads. The forensic officer has said that using Tor is never foolproof. Even high profile hackers like Ross Ulbricht have been caught as they left obvious information on Tor sites. Mainly the mistake that hackers commit is made early in their career. If they don’t change their identifiers and handles, which is rare with cybercriminals who maintain their reputation, then finding their flaws is a matter of finding their earliest mistakes,’ said the officer.
‘So what do you think personally? Will they ever be caught?’ asked Harvey. Sam looked at Commander Jason keenly as if to read his face and assess his thoughts. Commander Jason went blank for a while, and stared at Sam.
‘I surmise that they have a good chance to get away with this as they haven’t leaked any other identifiers. They have kept themselves clean by using Tor. And until now there isn’t anything worth enough to expose them. If the impact team was skilled enough to carry such hacks, then they might not have left anything behind. And if they go dark and never do anything in the future related to the identities used for Ashton Martinson, then they will never be caught,’ said the officer disappointedly. More than the officer, disappointment was written large on the faces of Harvey and Sam; there was an awkward silence in the cabin after the officer had spoken.
‘You guys can just wait and watch till the time the impact team takes some next action. They have also threatened to release almost 10GB data of 37 million users of Ashton Martinson very soon if their demands are not fulfilled. Rewards for information about the hackers are on offer. Police in Toronto are working day and night to find the mastermind behind all this. Whoever and wherever they are, they know there are millions of people wanting to pull a bullet in their head. Like if it were me who was planning to do all this, I would make pretty darn sure that nobody could ever trace me back,’ said the officer.
‘Yes, you are so right! Only then all this will make sense ... but in this case, I wonder. Sam’s blackmailers, who had called him over to Las Vegas would have been easily caught; why would they want to expose themselves? Were they not scared to be caught then?’ asked Harvey. There was total confusion on the face of the officer at this statement.
‘What are you talking about? The blackmailer called Sam and met him in person? You never mentioned this. And there are no reports of any victims who have met their blackmailer or were called at any place,’ said the officer. Harvey told the officer about the whole episode of first mail and the visit to Las Vegas, the mix-up and his meeting with Kavya, loss at the card table and then sending money again to some Indian bank account over the second email. He told him about his visit to India as well. The officer heard everything in utter shock.
‘Well, I think this is some other case. Because the impact team is the sole group behind this scam and they have not blackmailed anyone in the pattern which you have described. Someone definitely is taking advantage of this scam and extracting money from you, Sam. Do you think you have any rival or any person who can do this with you for some personal reason?’ asked the officer. Sam gave it a thought, but could not think of anyone who would want to do something like this. Harvey had always thought that it could be something else, and after what Commander Jason said he was quite sure about it.
‘No ... I don’t know anyone or don’t have any known rival who would want to do something like this,’ said Sam.
‘Well, in that case, can I check those emails? Let me verify it now right here with those who are actually being sent emails by the impact team,’ said the officer.
Sam showed all the emails and gave all the IP addresses of the computers from which they were sent. He also sent the details of the bank account. The officer took a while to get it all checked from his cybercrime department and came back with some shocking information.
‘The emails you received are not even from the Tor network, whereas the other emails were sent using Tor so that no one could track them back. And the computers which your blackmailer has used are all from different places and that too from local cyber cafés. This is surely not the work of the impact team, not even a basic hacker would make such a mistake, Harvey; Sam’s blackmailer has some personal reason for sure and he or she has used the perfect timing to do so,’ said Commander Jason.
Sam did not know how to react. Who would want to do something like this with him? He was lost in his own thoughts. He had always been a cool boss and a friendly human in his office. His work partners were even like his close friends and thus would not want to do anything like this. While Sam was lost in his thoughts, Harvey suddenly came up with something.
‘Oh, I completely forgot about an Australian contact who has made a website to check if your account is being ever hacked; I was supposed to send him all the details after returning from India, but that murder case caught me here, and I completely forgot about it,’ said Harvey.
‘Hmm ... well you can check with it and then later we will have to track all of Sam’s activity to see who is after him; till then Sam think hard if you know someone who can do this,’ said the officer.
Sam and Harvey left the LAPD building. Both had lots of puzzles to solve and keep themselves busy.
‘I seriously fail to think about anyone who could do this,’ said Sam in a shallow voice.
‘Don’t worry Sam, we will nail this,’ said Harvey. His confidence level had suddenly been boosted; he was proved right with his thought that Sam’s case was different from others.
Chapter 34
Sahil, back in Mumbai, got up with Harvey’s call early in the morning wanting to talk about Troy Hunt. He told him everything about Sam’s case taking a turn. Sahil decided to keep secret that he had gone to Ankleshwar and checked out Kabir’s production unit there as he was still not sure that they were involved in the scam. But now, after talking with Harvey, his perspective changed. The suspicion which he had earlier grew back again, and he couldn’t get back to sleep after the call. He made tea for himself and took the newspaper to read it. As he opened the paper, something typed in bold letters caught his attention immediately:
‘Lady Who Filed TB-Related PIL Unhappy With High Court Verdict’
Sahil read the whole article and thought it would be an excellent time to meet Kavya. He meanwhile called Kavish and told him to have a word with his Australian friend, Troy Hunt. He explained to him everything that Harvey had said that morning. Sahil knew he had a busy day ahead and left for his office early to finish his work so that he could manage to meet Kavya.
‘Hello Kavya, this is Sahil here, remember? Harvey’s friend. Is it a good time to talk?’ asked Sahil as Kavya answered the phone.
‘Hey, yes of course, I remember you; so how have you been?’ asked Kavya.
‘I am good. Read the article about your PIL in
the newspaper today, so thought of calling you. Is it possible for you to meet today?’ asked Sahil hesitantly. Kavya was quiet for a while, and after a few seconds, she replied.
‘Well, today ... actually, I am not in a good frame of mind, am resting at home. Is it okay if I meet you after a few days or we could just talk over the phone?’ asked Kavya in a faint voice.
‘Everything okay with you? Actually, not on the phone, I wanted to meet you in person and talk about this PIL matter; let me know whenever you are comfortable to meet and talk,’ said Sahil.
‘Okay, well, in that case, why don’t you come over to my place in the evening at 5 p.m.?’ asked Kavya.
‘That’s superb, see you then at 5,’ said Sahil and hung up.
Sahil wanted to meet her regarding his suspicion related to the Ashton Martinson scam. But since he had no proof, he didn’t want to hurt Kavya by accusing her directly. He had a soft heart for her as she was herself ill and facing many problems for the noble cause she was fighting for. If Sahil’s heart had to decide, then he would never suspect Kavya, but since his mind had warned him otherwise, he had to make sure that every angle had been investigated. As of now, he only wanted to ask her a few indirect questions and offer help for her PIL case.
Sahil got free from his office early and got some chocolate pastries for Kavya thinking that it would cheer her mood. He reached her house at the appointed time.
‘Hi, come in,’ said Kavya as she opened the door. The soothing aroma near the entrance had fascinated Sahil earlier as well. He made himself comfortable as he was offered welcome drinks. And that’s when he observed Kavya properly, who was sitting on the sofa in front of him. He noticed some changes in her. She had lost weight and looked darker as if she had got badly tanned in the sun. Her eyes still sparkled though, but she looked tired and unhappy as if she had lost all hope. She definitely didn’t seem okay.