Nashua Detectives Go High Tech

Nashua Police Department Youth Services Division has invested in new equipment to help investigate crimes committed with the use of cell phones and other computerized devices.

Too often these are crimes that involve the exploitation of children via digital images.

It's a matter of keeping up with the times, says Lt. Frank Sullivan, a detective with the police department's Youth Services Division. Twenty years ago, the bad guys might drop a dime in a pay phone to make a connection or plot a crime, or leave a paper trail of images and information for detectives to follow.

Today, with the rise in use of cell phones and computers to send and receive voice and text messages, or data and image files, police require more high-tech solutions when it comes down to gathering evidence and tracing the footsteps of criminals that led to the commission of a crime.

If that crime is to be solved – and prosecuted – police need to keep up with high-tech tools of the trade.

Thanks to federal grant money, Nashua Police have been able to invest in equipment that allows them to extract important information directly from cell phones and computers.

"A smart phone is a computer, nowadays, so these devices provide a fantastic resource for us to use during investigations," Sullivan said.

In particular, extraction equipment manufactured by cellebrite.com, has proven ideal for extracting illegal and explicit images used in cases involving child pornography.

A UFED, or Universal Forensic Extraction Device, can detect and extract within in minutes deleted or hidden information, including passcodes and GPS tracking, from most devices.

Nashua Police Det. Stephen Sweeney and Det. Robert Powers are specially trained in the handling and processing of digital evidence, and attend in-service training in order to keep up-to-date with current trends in computer related crimes, as well as techniques to investigate them, Sullivan said.

It's a clear advantage having in-house around-the-clock access to a computer laboratory capable of processing all types of computer evidence, which is also available to other area police departments, Sullivan said.

Detectives work closely with the New Hampshire Internet Crimes Against Children (NH ICAC) Task Force to investigate crimes involving child exploitation and technology, both in Nashua as well as in other areas of the state, Sullivan said.

Since the equipment arrived, it has been used in more than 50 investigations, and counting, Sullivan said.

"In these changing times you have to be proactive. With this equipment we don't have to wait. We can extract information that may be crucial in prosecuting a case," Sullivan said.