SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah State Legislature will form a special subcommittee focused on combating organized crime.
"Frankly, because there’s a need," said Rep. Ryan Wilcox, R-Ogden, the co-chair of the Utah State Legislature's Interim Law Enforcement & Criminal Justice Committee.
The subcommittee will look at a variety of topics that fall under the "organized crime" umbrella, including drug cartels, cyber-crime groups and retail theft rings. As a legislative subcommittee, they have the power to open bill files and compel witness testimony, Rep. Wilcox said.
"We see individuals traveling from state to state, hitting retail stores taking as much as they possibly can, exploiting not just retail stores but any type of theft that will get them the funds," said Tanner Jensen, the director of the Utah Department of Public Safety's Statewide Information Analysis Center.
Jensen gave a presentation on crime trends in Utah to the committee on Wednesday. Overall, property crime, violent crime and homicides in Utah are trending downward or is flat. That mirrors crime trends nationally, DPS officials said.
But there are emerging problems. Fentanyl has now eclipsed methamphetamine as the top illicit drug in Utah. Cyber crime is an increasing problem. Jensen said cryptocurrency scams are becoming a bigger issue, costing Utahns millions of dollars each year. Health care organizations and government institutions are major targets for ransomware and identity theft.
"The best way to combat that is prevention. So educating the public on what scams look like, how to protect yourself from ransomware. The simplest thing is a two-factor authentication on all passwords," Jensen told FOX 13 News. "That would take care of the large majority of these cyber attacks that occur."
