Field Offices

The mission of the Secret Service Cyber Fraud Task Forces (CFTFs) is to prevent, detect, and mitigate complex cyber-enabled financial crimes, with the ultimate goal of arresting and convicting the most harmful perpetrators. Through a partnership with private industry, state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) and federal law enforcement agencies, federal and state prosecutors, and academia, the CFTFs effectively leverage the collective expertise of a range of key stakeholders necessary to combat cybercrime. The CFTFs are staffed with special agents, technical experts, forensic analysts operating in the CFTF Digital Evidence Forensic Labs, and SLTT task force officers trained through the Secret Service National Computer Forensics Institute (NCFI).

In 1995, the Secret Service's New York Field Office established the first Electronic Crimes Task Force (ECTF). The task force was substantially modeled on the existing Secret Service-led Financial Crimes Task Forces (FCTFs), which were established in 1984, following the enactment of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act and the resultant criminal authorities Congress provided to our agency. Leveraging state and local law enforcement partners, in addition to prosecutor offices, private sector industry groups, and academia, the ECTF concept led to increased investigative successes in the emerging field of cyber-enabled criminal activity.

In 2001, in the aftermath of 9/11, the USA PATRIOT (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act mandated the Secret Service to expand the New York ECTF concept nationally for the “purpose of preventing, detecting, and investigating various forms of electronic crimes, including potential terrorist attacks against critical infrastructure and financial payment systems.” Since that time, dozens of additional ECTFs, including two overseas, were created for this purpose.

In 2018, the Secret Service began evaluating strategic options to improve the organization of Secret Service task forces by combining existing ECTFs and FCTFs. These combined task forces - CFTFs - have resulted in better coordination with task force partners, and the consolidation of investigative and technical skillsets during operations.

Secret Service Announces the Creation of the Cyber Fraud Task Force