IC3 - Internet Crime Complaint Center:
The Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC) was established as a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C) to serve as a means to receive Internet related criminal complaints, research, develop and refer the criminal complaints to law enforcement agencies for any investigation they deem to be appropriate. The IFCC was intended, and continues to emphasize serving the broader law enforcement community, to include federal, as well as state and local agencies, which are combating Internet crime and in many cases participating in Cyber Crime Task Forces.
Since its inception, the IFCC has received complaints crossing the spectrum of cyber crime matters, to include on-line fraud in its many forms, Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) matters, Computer Intrusions (hacking), Economic Espionage (Theft of Trade Secrets), On-line Extortion, International Money Laundering, Identity Theft and a growing list of Internet facilitated crimes. Over the past three years it has become increasingly evident that, regardless of the label placed on a cyber crime matter, the potential for it to overlap with another referred matter is substantial.
The IFCC is therefore being renamed the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), to better reflect the broad character of such matters having a cyber (Internet) nexus referred to the IC3, and to minimize the need for one to distinguish 'Internet Fraud' from other potentially overlapping cyber crimes."