The investigation of crimes committed on the Internet comes at a high price for police officials. Expenses include tele-operator charges incurred by police attempting to determine the computer addresses of Internet crooks.
Many cases of Internet fraud involve instances in which goods are sold, but the merchandise is not delivered to customers once they have parted with their money. In these cases, the merchandise most often includes gaming consoles, mobile phones and concert tickets.
In Oulu, charges are being considered in a case in which a young man managed to defraud unwary Internet users of thousands of euros for the sale of a non-existent video game console. The scam went on for months, since most of those defrauded did not report the crime.
Internet fraudsters can generally only be traced by way of their bank account information. However in some cases, catching the criminals requires tracing the computer's IP address, which police obtain from Internet Service Providers.
Police authorities have invested millions of euros in operator control technology and actual inquiries may cost up to 1.5 million euros annually.
Currently the courts determine whether police must pay for each address enquiry separately as the tele-operators are insisting. The annual cost of gaining information about online criminals would cost the same as paying 60 police officers.