Arrest Reveals Computerized Crime Guide for Teen-agers

The arrest of an Agoura Hills boy who allegedly learned theft techniques from his home computer has tipped authorities to the existence of a virtual textbook of crime tips on a computer bulletin board popular with teen-agers, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies said Thursday.

Investigators looking for those responsible for broadcasting the electronic bulletin board said the boy’s arrest also led them to believe there may be a burglary ring of teen-agers operating in Agoura Hills.

The boy is believed to have used his computer to get instructions for making a fraudulent credit card purchase.

“It’s all spelled out there on the computer,” said Detective Imon Mills. “You can get numbers of different banks of information. If you want to make Molotov cocktails, bombs, hot-wire a car, prowl, take a trip to Hawaii, it’s all there, step by step.”

Detectives said the arrested boy, a 14-year-old Agoura High School student, called up instructions on his computer terminal on how to use someone else’s credit-card number to make purchases and have them delivered to a phony address.

Youth Not Identified

The teen-ager, who was not identified because of his age, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of grand theft by fraud after allegedly using a Westlake Village doctor’s credit-card number to buy an $850, radio-controlled model helicopter.

Investigators said the youth has admitted obtaining instructions for the crime from the bulletin board, an electronic network that allows computer hobbyists to exchange information between home computers hooked up to telephones.

Mills said the investigation turned up evidence of a more conventional teen-age burglary ring, in which youths swiped goods from garages and patios and sold or traded the items among themselves. There is no evidence that these youths use computers to learn criminal techniques, detectives said.

“We’re still uncovering additional crimes” that the boy may have been involved in or have known about, including burglary, petty theft and grand theft, Mills said. He said detectives believe one person is doing most of the stealing.

No other arrests have been made, but another 14-year-old is being investigated, Mills said.

“This is going in a lot of directions,” he said of the probe. “It’s like an octopus. It’s just unbelievable.”

The unusual crime primer instructed the boy how to hunt for used credit-card carbon forms in trash bins behind shopping centers and use the account numbers imprinted on the carbons to charge purchases by telephone, Mills said. It also described how to then have the goods delivered by a private shipping service to vacant houses.

The boy retrieved his carbon forms from rubbish containers outside The Oaks shopping center in Thousand Oaks and had a North Hollywood hobby shop ship the model helicopter to an empty house in his neighborhood, investigators said.

“He left a note on the house’s door saying he had been called away and to leave the delivery on the doorstep. It worked like clockwork,” Mills said.

The boy’s parents thought he had received the helicopter model in a trade, he said. Mills said sheriff’s deputies were tipped off about the scheme by another teen-ager.

Stolen Surfboards, Skiis

Detectives investigating the computer’s role in the helicopter model theft uncovered evidence that teen-age thieves were stealing such things as skiis, surfboards, radio-controlled model airplanes and cars and bicycles from patios and garages, then trading the loot with friends.

Six residences victimized by the garage and patio thefts were located Thursday as deputies began confiscating suspected loot that could total $5,000. Only two of the victims had reported their losses to the Sheriff’s Department, which polices Agoura Hills.

The Agoura Hills incident is the latest example of computer abuse that has sent police prowling through electronic bulletin boards and searching for pirate operators of bulletin boards.

Last month, authorities in New Jersey arrested seven teen-agers and shut down a computer network that published false credit-card numbers, details on how to build pipe bombs and telephone access numbers for Pentagon computers. Extortion demands posted on an Encino computer bulletin board led to the arrest of two Monterey teens and seizure of their computers last April.

Outlawed by State

California law prohibits unauthorized entry into private computer systems or destruction or theft of material stored on computers. Legislation is pending that would also make it unlawful to post unlisted phone numbers, credit-card numbers and computer access codes on computer bulletin boards.

But authorities can arrest pirate bulletin board operators who publish crime tips such as those found in Agoura Hills, said Lt. Fred Reno, a computer crimes expert with the Los Angeles Police Department’s bunco squad.

“Technically, information on how to break the law might be part of a conspiracy. They could be closed down. We’ve never had a case like that, but, when we pursue a case, we take steps to confiscate the equipment used,” Reno said.

However, Sheriff’s Detective Mills said it may be difficult to trace the person responsible for the Agoura Hills crime instructions because computer enthusiasts used only first names or nicknames when connected to the bulletin board.

Bob Mohammadi, a computer consultant in Agoura Hills, said the pirate bulletin board was probably open to many computer users. He said he has never come across a computer network that featured crime tips. “Most bulletin boards have information on computers or things like books or movies,” he said. “It should be illegal to put something like that in them.”