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- Maya Angelou
How do we plan to spend the donated funds?
Often as a result of lack of planning or lack of resources, law enforcement agencies in mostly poor or third world countries are under-resourced and are poorly trained in the type of crime which employs the use of digital devices (computers, lap tops, mobile phones, tablets, digital storage devices, etc.) to accomplish the illegal acts. In the crime of Cyber Sex Trafficking, the online sexual exploitation of children, the illegal acts commences and ends with the use of some type of digital device. As such, a digital forensics laboratory is the main tool that law enforcement must have to conduct the required forensics examinations (i.e. identify, collect, store and preserve digital evidence) of devices belonging to the perpetrators to secure the evidence of the crime that are necessary to support criminal prosecutions. DFA’s primary focus is the establishment of a fully functioning, state-of-the-art digital forensics laboratory for the use by law enforcement officers. In some countries, a functioning digital forensics laboratory is non-existent.
If the digital forensics laboratory is the main tool in addressing Cyber Sex Trafficking, appropriate state-of-the-art training must be provided to law enforcement officers who will use the laboratory. DFA’s objective is to capacitate law enforcement officers in gathering the required evidence to support the ensuing criminal prosecutions. DFA’s fully trained, experienced and certified examiners will provide training, mentoring, and coaching on the internationally accepted forensic examination standards. Through these types of interfaces, DFA experts will capacitate and guide untrained or poorly trained law enforcement officers from poor countries, not only on the use of top-notch forensics equipment, but also on the current judicially approved/accepted standards in conducting digital forensics examinations.
DFA will recruit and maintain a cadre of certified examiners who can deploy to foreign countries to be part of the training, mentoring, and coaching team who will interface with law enforcement officers. To become a fully certified digital forensics examiner, one must complete costly, intensive and highly specialized training. DFA’s objective is to recruit U.S.-based and fully certified examiner(s) who can deploy on a rotational basis to foreign countries. If pro-bono services from qualified/certified examiners are not available, DFA will hire and support the deployment of examiners who meets DFA’s stringent technical capability requirements.
By working hand in hand with Philippine and other international law enforcement agencies, DFA’s founder cultivated professional relationships with officers tasked with enforcing laws pertaining to Cyber Sex Trafficking (CST), the online sexual exploitation of children. Through these candid relationships, an accurate assessment of the needs and challenges faced by law enforcement involved in CST investigations resulted. By maintaining these types of relationships and through actual field/assessment visits, accurate pictures of the needs of a law enforcement unit that is tasked with combatting CST can be drawn. These assessments will be utilized by DFA to design the level of assistance to be offered to a particular country.
DFA will shed the light on the dark crime of Cyber Sex Trafficking (CST) by not only educating the public of its existence, but also enlisting the public’s help in assisting law enforcement units in addressing CST. DFA will strive for widest possible social media exposure. To aid in reaching such exposure, DFA will expand its network by working with like-minded organizations who are concerned about the phenomena of exploitation of children in one form or another.
Once successful in executing the “Pilot Project” in the Philippines, DFA will review the viability of turning over the management, maintenance, and operation of the fully functioning laboratory to third world authorities. DFA will replicate the process of establishing a similar laboratory in another under-resourced country that is plagued by the Cyber Sex Trafficking menace.
Go behind the scenes and see what a rescue operation looks like.
PHASE ONE:   Undercover police officers make online contact and negotiate with suspected violators in order to locate sexually exploited children.
PHASE TWO:   Once the location is identified, law enforcement officers plan the rescue of the children, and secure the location during the rescue operation.
PHASE THREE:   Government social workers assisted by law enforcement officers removes sexually exploited children from the abusive environment and place them under protective custody.
**NOTE: DSWD = Department of Social Welfare and Development (Philippines)
PHASE FOUR:   Law enforcement officers identify the suspected exploiters.
**NOTE: WCPC = Women and Children Protection Center (Philippines)
PHASE FIVE:   Law enforcement officers and social workers calms and reassures rescued children prior to their transportation to protective shelters.
PHASE SIX:   Law enforcement officers takes into custody the identified children’s exploiters. Sadly, often they are their parents, other family members, and/or known close friends or relatives.
PHASE SEVEN:   Law enforcement officers attempts to identify and collect digital devices for subsequent forensics examination for evidentiary purposes.
We are planning to set up our first project in the Philippines.
From 2014 to 2016 while working for a non-governmental organization in Cebu, Philippines, Alex Ilusorio, (Founder and President of DFA) was personally involved in numerous rescue operation conducted by law enforcement authorities of children who were participants in these sexual exploitation shows. His firsthand experience in Cebu galvanized his desire to rescue and/or prevent children from being exploited. He came to know how pervasive the problem is that it has become almost like a "cottage industry" in certain parts of Cebu. One that particularly haunts him was a nine-month old baby being shown in a horrific situation. These sexual exploitation shows are streamed through the internet for viewing in the comfort of the violators' offices or homes. Payments for these shows vary depending on the “complexity” of what is being requested. The payments for these shows are normally and conveniently accomplished through electronic money transfers (i.e. PayPal, Western Union, Xoom, Instagram, etc.).
Due to very limited resources and lack of advance planning and law enforcement officers (LEO) in third world countries, which represent the supply side of CST, are not prepared to deal with this menace that has arrived in their jurisdictions. To aid LEOs in these countries, DFA will assist in establishing, developing and/or augmenting their non-existent or limited digital forensic examination capabilities.
In order to do so, DFA plans to establish facilities, donate the needed equipment, training, and expertise and collaborate with the LEOs in these countries to capacitate their ill- prepared personnel that are tasked with addressing all cyber-related crimes. The objective of DFA’s planned donation and collaboration is to assist in the creation of sustainable pools of qualified personnel who, not only could conduct digital forensic examinations that meets international standards, but also provide evidence to their counterparts worldwide to initiate the apprehension of the violators/pedophiles who are in the demand side locations.
With proper training and the right equipment, DFA will develop a cadre of internationally certified examiners who will be proficient in identifying, collecting, and preserving evidence. This same pool of certified forensic examiners will serve as the source of certified expert witnesses who could testify in any court proceedings worldwide, thereby promoting successful prosecutions in both the supply and the demand side of CST.
See the chart below from NCMEC. These numbers represent the general report numbers that are being sent to the Philippines. Note the numbers for the first half of the year 2017. There is no doubt that the Philippines is a good place to start our pilot project due to the number of potential cases there and Alex's firsthand experiences in knowing where the law enforcement weakness lies in addressing this problem.
*January 1 through June 29, 2017 only
Digital Forensics Auxiliary (DFA) was founded and is governed by criminal justice professionals from two very distinct and related disciplines. The first discipline is criminal investigation and the second is digital forensics science. We leverage our aggregate training and years of experience to support and execute DFA’s mission. The first discipline is represented by former U.S. federal and state law enforcement officers with extensive knowledge and wide breadth of experience in all facets of criminal investigation and evidence handling. Highly trained, very skilled,and currently certified digital forensic examiners who are sought after and well known in their field, represents the second discipline. Its human resource relative to knowledge and expertise in the identification, collection, and preservation of digital evidence places DFA amongst the top tiers of this field.
