13d-usle Social Media and Intelligence led policing.

Utilizing Criminal Gang Activities on Social Media Platforms for Driving Intelligence-Led Policing


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The practice of "cyber banging" is getting prevalent among gangs. Gangs are employing new team members to trigger their rivals, engage in crime, and promote their brands over online platforms.


Authors Note: In times of excessively trapped knowledge resources, intelligence-led policing is a primary method of identification and investigation of gang activity. This specified reporting series evaluates the strategies departments can use to make data-driven techniques for reducing the crime rates due to gang activities.


The diversified support of social media has rooted in everyday get-togethers of friends and families to provide an easy passage to gangs for criminal activities. This calls for the law enforcers to gear up their investigating techniques according to the new paradigm and networks so that they can stay ahead of such criminals.


Aaron Concepcion, who has been working as a correctional sergeant for 15 years now in New York, states that “If your law enforcement agency has yet to incorporate social media investigations as a routine step during your investigative process, your agency is falling behind and missing out on a gold mine of intelligence gathering." He spent five years of his service as a head investigator of crimes related to gangs for an intelligence center. 


Social Media Networks

During the past two decades, the rate of potential usage of social media for gang activities and crimes has excessively increased. The most notorious platforms, as per the National Gang Investigators Association, among these criminals, are WhatsApp, Google, Flickr. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Kik.


In this practice of cyber banging, gangsters are using the outreach of social media platforms to find new team members, threaten their rivals, and advertise their criminal activities. Social media platforms promote the brand and aid the communication activities among the members. Gang members boost off their sinister activities to create an overwhelming environment and terrorize their rivals.


Xbox Live and PlayStation4 real-time features of supporting networking and communication among the users and players during games are also a potential resource for such gangs. The games not only allow local communications, but the players can also connect with the international players utilizing these interfaces. Gangs such as MS 13 can call out their leaders in El Salvador using such platforms since this interface cannot be tapped easily.


Recently a case rose to prominence in New Mexico where the trafficking of narcotics was being supported with social media so that drugs can be transported to America from Ciudad Juarez. Around 14 residents from New Mexico and Las Cruces were charged for the trafficking of heroin. The arrest was a result of an investigation (that took 2 years) by multiple agencies on Jesus Salvador Otero-Martinez. 32, was accused of being the prime supplier of heroin for many traffickers in Las Cruces at street level. This accused heroin trafficking network allegedly supplied heroin to couriers who carried the narcotic into Las Cruces, El Paso, Texas, and New Mexico, where it was then delivered to dealers at street level. Moreover, the defendants (as per court filings) took advantage of social media platforms in facilitating their actions related to heroin trafficking. 

In May 2017, a gangster shot Lamanta Reese (19), a rival gangster in the crime-polluted suburbs of Chicago, for uploading a video over YouTube in which he was criticizing the rival gangs. The shoot misunderstood an emoji which he believed was insulting his mother. 


Activities over social media are becoming effective at an alarming rate among the Mexican Cartels. The famous criminal Los Zetas has been tracking down bloggers who posted content against him and has so far murdered at least four influencers. Among the murdered were a woman (39 years old) who they beheaded and two males who were hanged from an over-passing bridge. The bodies were left with a warning stating that “This is going to happen to all internet snitches. Pay attention, I’m watching you!” 


Online Tools for LE

Despite being intimidating and daunting, the law enforcers have still managed to attain success in conducting surveillance operations and interdiction missions. The law enforcement institutes are employing smart millennials who are handy with technology and well-tuned for dealing with social media platforms.


Highlighting the utilization of a great new variety of web-based tools, Concepcion stated that "There's no one-stop-shop or sole technique for mining information online. You might find success with a particular technique on one case and then find it unsuccessful on another,"


There are several paid software that aid the scraping of data and mining social media-based analytics that track the open-sourced social media accounts, for instance, Geofeedia and Media Sonar geographically. Concepcion finds a great number of free applications as well, which are quite effective to aid the investigations. For instance, Inteltechniwues.com has several tools that can support the investigation procedures.


Concepcion says, "You would be surprised at the amount of information you can acquire by simply running a name on Pipl.com,”


Although most of the members of such gangs never use real names to keep their identities secret, by tracking the profiles of such gangsters’ family members, closer friends, or related visitors, the culprits can be screened. Such information often creates major leads for the surveillance teams and points them directly to the suspects providing valuable information.


Social Media Operated Surveillance

There is a long list of successes of surveillance because of the utilization of resources provided by social media and other networking platforms.


During June 2014, NYPD reported the use of around one million Facebook uploads and posts to aid the raid for gangs. The raid took place in Manhattanville and General Ulysses S. Grant’s housing societies in West Harlem. Authorities arrested forty suspects and charged them for crimes such as assault, murder, and cooperation.


During a similar crackdown in San Diego, California, investigators arrested gangsters who uploaded their selfies over Facebook at the crime scene of the murder. The police claimed 56 members of the gang for racketeering and conspiring to aid the distribution of drugs and weapons.


Concepcion stated that “Mining social media may not always hand you a home run like the above cases, but it can provide you with pieces of the puzzle, like a photo for facial recognition, gang affiliations, associations or current locations,”


Although social media surveillance methods demand the dedication of a specific department but they are quite simple and basic to handle.


According to the suggestion of Concepcion, the departments should select around two to three officers and train them. "If there is a particular gang in your area, I’d research and decipher their lingo, as well as read through their lessons if possible,” he said. “You can execute a simple hashtag search on google or Instagram using the same lingo such as #MS13 #BlazingBilly.”


Basic windows system support integrates tools like snipping tools. These tools help in making files and keeping records. These tools will save time and data for the screening. The greatest challenge is to organize the information and track it down to root the suspects.



Some tips for creating efficient social media surveillance operations are as follows:

  • Keep it comprehensive and keep an eye on suspected or known outlets.
  • The terminologies and codes these gangs are using over the online platform should be cracked.
  • “Friends” can be an effective source for analysis.
  • Can be utilized in disrupting or forecasting criminal activities.
  • Can be utilized in locating the suspects.



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