In Feb 08, when I was living in Pentagon City, Arlington, VA, I was a victim of an international money laundering scheme by a person I met through the Internet on myspace.

After talking to many within the identity theft field and others in the government, I came to find out my crime was one that could be categorized as a Level 4 Sophistication & that 9x out of 10, my money was used to help support terrorists.

I was a fortunate one - where only a small amount got taken, compared to the other horrible stories I have heard. They got a bit over $5,000 from me, almost $20K by the end of the day had I not stopped it.

I am a former private investigator and special investigator - so for someone to be able to get this over on me --- and believe me, for every doubt I had, I asked hard quesitons and lots of questions before the money was out of my control.

Secret Service and any other fed'l gov't agency that handles this, doesn't have the manpower to assist in cases such as mine, b/c the dollar figure is too small. I was informed by my local Arlington Detective that they don't usually work cases unless they are $50K and higher. This is understandable, but at the same time, known to the criminals that are taking our money.

They know the cap that the Agencies have the manpower to work, so instead of going for big amounts in that range, they have now been just switched their plans to get as much as they can that is 45K and under from one person as they can, and then on to the next. That way, they have no chance of being investigated or identified (which is practically impossible, I am well aware, anyway).

It would make sense to me, to have a massive team of agents that do work the smaller cases - even down to 5-10K cases, b/c our cases are really just as important as the next person's case who lost more money, and in my situation, where the money went to (most likley) support terrorism - the exact thing your Agency exists to prevent.  I lived one mile from the Pentagon. My money went through the Harris Teeter on Army Navy Drive that was the final funding place for the terrorists of the 9/11 attacks. You would think there would be special attention to my case. But no.

I 'stayed' on with these guys to try to gain more information for the US Gov't to nab them. I did this for about 2 months, before it was consuming my life, and I had to put a decison to stop on it. I have a recordings of the guy's voice from a voicemail messages he left me. I have all the IP netstat's for about a month's worth of convo on yahoo IM (once I learned how to do this - although I know he was rerouting these constantly to be untrackable. I have all the chats, emails saved.

I contacted Yahoo fraud division to see if we could have a more accurate tracking of his IP address, attached to the email he was using. I informed them of my crime, and informed them of his purposeful diversions (he was in South Carolina one minute, Atlanta the next, London, UK the next, the Phillipinies the next, then Arlington, VA the next) all within 10 minutes.  They didn't respond back. That should change. Why do they even have a fraud reporting division if no one gets back to you? I followed up 2x even, still no reply.

If they worked with me, the information I had, was constantly obtaining from this guy, etc, etc. perhaps we could have had a better chance of identifying this person or even tracking him down. I am well aware the odds are slim -but no one helped or responded to even give my idea a try, so unless email providers also step up to their responsibilities to help prevent frauds, you will never know what you could be stopping that would have a tremendous positive impact on civilians and that same positive impact in terms of headway for your Counterterrorism division in the DHS Agency.

A person who is trying to constantly commit crimes can't exist in today's world without an email address. You prevent them from ever having one, from all free email providers, you might not stop them, but you deter them some and you are also letting them know you are on to them. That alone might give them reason to stop, or slow them down enough so government agencies can work with what they have to possibly make headway on the person.

So I am suggesting the idea that free email providers are given more strict government regulations in terms of their fraud departments in response, and give them authority to do things immediately to help prevent terrorist funding. Believe me, these criminals are not going to throw a lawsuit on Yahoo b/c their email address was instantly pulled. That would in essence be admitting to the crimes, turning themselves into the government.

These guys aren't stupid, as you know, they are very intelligent and their networks are vast. And they aren't stealing people's money to take a vacation to an island. Not the level of people I was interacting with. They were stealing money to support a bigger, evil cause - the reason your organization exists today. Terrorism.

But now I know how they work a lot more. And I know there are way more of our small 'insignificant'  $5,000-$45,000 cases out there than there are of the $50K cases, b/c they got smart and caught on.   And enough of us victims have more intelligence combined to maybe help you put some kind of stop or deterrence on the very thing our government allocates millions to annually to keep America safe.

I was going to even pay a friend to build a website and I was going to start a company around this - because my government didn't do anything to deter this, although they are fully aware of how the social networking sites are filled with frauds and scammers and terrorist funders, and they didn't do anything to help once it happened.

No one ever gets their money back (even if they arrest someone) simply because the money is already laundered - already spent.  So why does someone's $50K case take precedence to get worked over my $5K? My guy wasn't just working me in one time period, he had many others going too. I am almost 99% sure of this. So, my $5K one week, someone else's a few days later, someone else's (maybe more, $20K) the next week, etc- by the end of the month -it's practically the same amount. Again, mine would have been over $20K, had I not caught on to it, so my statement is valid.

As someone who donates to the US Military, has friends in all branches overseas risking their lives to protect us from terrorists, it sickens me that this is what my money went to, and my case was not given the attention it should have been, to maybe help prevent this in the future. I have more information than most, b/c I gathered it the best I could - the way I would any investigative assignment I was on in my previous career. I would have been a valuable asset.

There should also be a cohesive collaboration b/t social networking sites, such as myspace, facebook that are breading havens for supporters of terrorists - and the local police (before your case even gets to the federal government agency). It should be instant.

Myspace was incredible in their immediate response and help to my situation, but I know facebook is not so much. That should change. Myspace had interaction with my local detective and I expected this person's profile to instantly be pulled, once they heard and saw enough evidence by the detective that my money was stolen by him. But that didn't happen. So, this person went on to continue stealing from other people - and that could have been prevented if there was a rule/law in place that would order the social networking site to do so.  So that is one idea I am suggesting.

If I was on the street and this man robbed me of $5000+ from my person, he would have been apprehended, arrested and taken off the street by a local police officer or detective once evidence was shown within a few hours he stole my money. It's the same thing. Just because we are on a computer, the crime resolve shouldn't change. It's still the same crime, more or less. It should be treated as so. It's perspective yes, but I think I make a valid point. Our government agencies loose sight of this sometimes trying to 'divide up' responsibilities and what they are authorized to do.

So again, the basic idea: a more cohesive immediate working & communication level between local and federal government agencies and the social networking sites that works within the rights of Constitution, the people, yet helps prevent or deter future crimes.

Also, if there was ever a massive disclaimer running constantly across the screen of myspace when I signed up such as:  'warning, this place is constantly circulating with frauds and people of false identities'. Perhaps I would have been sharper days before I caught on to what was happening. But I was just a civilian signing up on myspace b/c a colleague told me it was good free business advertising. I never knew anything of or about the site before, so I had no way to know to 'be on guard'. That is another suggestion.

My idea works well within Obama's vision: You would create thousands of jobs by adding agents for international money laundering cases under $10K, and thousands of jobs for agents handling cases over $10K. And moreover, you would be forwarding your organization mission as well as his own: to do more on the homeland level to break up & deter the terrorists and the funding that supports them.

To help deter/stop terrorist funding.

To create more jobs.

To inform the Counterterroism division of DHS of how they should work with many important technology companies more cohesively to help prevent terrorist crimes and deter them. Companies such as facebook, myspace, yahoo, etc.

To stop being so money based capped on deciding what cases are worthy of working in terms of nabbing terrorist supporters.

To make more clear to the American Public that social networking platforms are the breading havens for many crimes, frauds, scams - especially terrorist funding.