Criminals earn more than one billion US dollars compiling compromising material and tapping mobile phones, Russian law-enforcement organizations report. It′s unlikely the victims′s losses can be calculated. Ruined or captured business, frustrated political career, loss of business reputation — these are just a few damages hunters for compromising material, supergrasses as people use to call them, can cause. There were millions of informants and supergrasses in the former USSR. A contemporary supergrass is equipped not only with the most modern electronic wiretapping systems but also with computer means designed to fabricate speech and form any kind of compromising materials on the basis of tapped conversations.

Compilation of compromising material became a mass phenomenon in Russia. First of all it is due to the fact that the cost of special equipment for mobile phone tapping decreased to a very low level. A portable device has recently appeared in a «black market». It weights less than 12 kg and costs approximately $50000. Up to 10000 mobile phones can be tapped with the help of this device. Even cheaper systems designed for compromising material compilation are presently available, a Norwegian newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv reports. They cost approximately $200 and can tap up to 20 phones. Such a simple device makes it possible to tap a mobile GSM phone at a distance of up to 500 meters. No wonder the top political elite just refused to use standard mobile phones. For example, Vladimir Putin remarked at an Internet conference in October last year that he preferred other communication means, those he trusted. Tapping devices can be easily obtained. That is why small and average business people become the targets of the hunt for compromising material along with oligarchs and leading politicians. Criminals act according to worked out schemes. For example, plotters may call a business man asking him to sell his company at $2000. In case the proposal is rejected they promise that the compromising material, obtained by wiretapping the business man′s mobile phone will be passed over to authorities, business partners, the husband or the wife. They can falsify a relative′s voice as if the latter became a victim of a road accident. This way of extortion has become very popular among criminals. Cases of kidnapping are known, when a kidnapper called a child and spoke with a voice of the parent. Only a digital speech synthesizer worth several thousand dollars and a wiretapping device is required for such a fraud. According to the unbiassed point of view of the most prominent Russian experts in the field of speech and voice analysis it is very easy to falsify the voice and the speech of a person speaking over a mobile phone using modern computer systems. It is interesting that businessmen would prefer spending money on physical security but not on informational security though they are aware of criminals′ tapping capabilities. Meanwhile the most reliable guard will be useless if it is evident from a victim′s phone conversation where and when the victim may be found.

А. Klepov