A high-ranking member of the US Secret Service American Samoa to build partnerships with local law enforcement agencies to fight cyber crime and threats to the US payment system, crimes which are surfacing in the Pacific.
The Guam Office of the US Secret Service has jurisdiction over the enitre Pacific as well as Bangkok and Hong Kong, and the Philippines.
The man in charge of the office, Brian Lewin, visited American Samoa this week and talked about the investigative function of the service in preventing, detecting and investigating threats to the US payment system.
US Secret Service Agent in Charge in Guam, Brian Lewin, (centre), visits American Samoa Photo: RNZ Pacific / Monica Miller
He said these include ATM scams, counterfeit currency, fraud and cyber crime.
Mr Lewin says usually cyber crimes are of a trans-national nature and they are borderless so it was important to build partnerships and awareness with local law enforcement to detect and respond to such crimes.
He said collaboration with other jurisdictions was a key to the investigative work of the Secret Service while the agency also helped build capacity of the islands to identify and respond to cyber crime.
One of the goals of the agency is to work with local authorities towards establishing an Electronic Crime Task Force for American Samoa which would be part of an ECTF network in the Asia Pacific region that will include Hawaii, Guam, and CNMI.
While in American Samoa Mr Lewin met with the Assistant Attorney General, Christy Dunn, and members of Congresswoman Aumua Amata's Field Office, Department of Public Safety, Attorney General's Office and Homeland Security.
Lewin has been Agent in Charge at the US Secret Service Office in Guam for 18 months and was involved in the crackdown on cyber crime involving a Chinese group operating out of Fiji last year.