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Traditional crooks including violent offenders turn to cyber crime

More than half of digital thieves have criminal record in ‘real world,’ police find

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A majority of cyber criminals were found to have committed non-internet related offences Credit: Photo: Alamy

The image of a cyber criminal might be of a geeky teenager drawn into the murky world of the Internet’s dark side while spending hours surfing online in the bedroom of his family home.

But a new study has discovered that in fact most online crooks already have a background in more traditional offending, with more than six out of 10 sporting a record for a crime unrelated to the Internet.

The research by Bedfordshire police found those convicted of cyber crimes also had a history of offences such as theft, burglary, shop lifting in the “real world.” A number were violent criminals with convictions for battery and assault.

Researchers at Cambridge University who drew on the police data said the evidence suggested that the nation’s analogue crooks are going digital.

Cyber crime is becoming more widespread

They said that while offending is falling overall, levels of cyber crime are “significantly higher” than official statistics suggest.

Jon Boutcher, deputy chief constable of Bedfordshire Police, interviewed hundreds of convicted cyber criminals for the study. In total, 64 per cent had criminal records for offences unrelated to the web.

The report said: “The study shows those traditional offenders are changing their behaviour and moving to the Internet.” It added that criminals who were often technical amateurs perceived cybercrime as a “low-risk, high-reward type of offending”.

Lawrence Sherman, director of Cambridge University’s Institute of Criminology, told the Financial Times: “I was really surprised to see the presence of violent crime in what we normally think of as a fairly nerdy thing to do: to sit in your bedroom all by yourself and rip people off.

“You don’t think of that being done by someone who’s bold as brass enough to demand that you give them your purse or else they punch you out.”

Prof Sherman added that the data was: “the strongest evidence that we have that there may be diversion of traditional criminals into cyber activity. This may take them out of that traditional crime.”