"" Secret Service agent flirts his way to an arrest
CNBC.com | October 23, 2014 | 09:56 AM EDT
Being a Secret Service agent requires extraordinary
bravery. But sometimes, it also requires flirting with
a Romanian hacker.
Secret Service Agent Matt O'Neill did just that during
a three-year undercover investigation that began in
2008 into the point-of-sale hacking at Subway
sandwich franchises and other retailers.
He told the story in Washington on Monday during a
joint Secret Service and FBI session with the
Financial Services Roundtable on cybersecurity.
O'Neill said he contacted the suspected hacker by
posing as a female casino employee in an effort to
entice him to come to the United States for what he
thought would be a gambling outing. That way, the
Secret Service could arrest him on U.S. soil, rather
than go to the trouble of extraditing him from
Romania.
The Secret Service worked with an American hotel
and casino to create a fictitious employee, "Sarah,"
who had an email address and direct phone line at
the hotel and her name on the hotel's online
directory. The fake employee would appear real if the
suspected hacker tried to check out her story. Agents
even photographed a young undercover female agent
with a sign saying "hi!" inside the hotel's lobby, and
sent the image to the Romanian.
O'Neill said over the next several months he
developed a "quasi-romantic" relationship with the
suspect, at times chatting online with him at 3 a.m.
while he fed his newborn baby as his wife slept in
another room at home.
"People say everyone has a gift," O'Neill joked. "And
mine happens to be chatting with men."
The suspect, Iulian Dolan, flew to Boston to meet the
supposed casino employee. When he arrived,
investigators said, he was carrying a gold necklace
for her as a gift, along with three boxes of grape-
flavored condoms.
He was arrested and is now serving a seven-year
sentence in federal prison in Mississippi.""
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