Secret Service teams with Italy; Forms new task forces domestically      

On June 30, 2009, the U.S. Secret Service announced a new initiative with the Italian Postal Service to set up an international task force to combat cyber crime. The European Electronic Crime Task Force will investigate identity theft, hacking and other computer-based crime from a headquarters in Rome. The initiative will be open to contributions from other European countries, private IT operators and academic institutions.


On July 10, the Secret Service announce the expansion of its domestic Electronic Crimes Task Force (ECTF) program with the addition of three new ECTFs located in St. Louis, Kansas City, and New Orleans.  The program builds regionally-based public-private partnerships aimed at fighting high-tech and computer-based crimes. The types of investigations handled by the Electronic Crimes Task Forces encompass a wide range of computer-based criminal activity, including network intrusions, hacking cases, identity theft, and other computer related crimes affecting financial and other critical infrastructures.


The addition of these four new ECTFs brings the total number of such task forces to 28.