DEA DATA THIEF SENTENCED TO 27 MONTHS

A 14-year veteran of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) who
fled to Mexico to avoid federal computer crime charges was sentenced in a
federal court in Los Angeles on Monday to 27 months in prison for selling
information on private citizens he plundered from sensitive law enforcement
databases.

Emilio Calatayud, 36, admitted in a plea agreement last August to raiding a
variety of systems to investigate claimants in over 100 workers
compensation cases being handled by Triple Check Investigative Services for
unnamed insurance carriers. Triple Check paid the former agent at least
$22,500 for the data over a six year period ending in 1999, according to
court records.

The purloined data came from three law enforcement computers to which
Calatayud had otherwise lawful access: the FBI's National Crime Information
Center (NCIC), which maintains nationwide records on arrest histories,
convictions and warrants; the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications
System (CLETS), a state network that gives agents access to California
motor vehicle records, rap sheets and fingerprints; and a DEA system called
the Narcotics and Dangerous Drug Information System (NADDIS), described by
a Justice Department Web page as a database of "over 3,500,000 individuals,
businesses, vessels and selected airfields