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The TV Genre of Forensic Crime-fighting

Public awareness videos that look like they could crack prime time.

By Scott Berinato

August 01, 2006 — CSO —

Except that they have. Sort of.

The United States Postal Inspection Service is distributing a series of DVD minidramas called Delivering Justice, about crimes that fall under its jurisdiction, including telemarketing fraud, investment fraud, phishing and work-at-home scams.

The shows are security awareness tools—each ends with a deep-voiced, authoritative "postal inspector" going over a list of ways to protect yourself against the featured scam. But you'd be forgiven for initially mistaking them for one of those prime-time productions: The show's opener is a stylized scene of a Postal Inspection police team taking down fraudsters in a rainstorm, slamming them against the pavement and cuffing them. Hey, these guys are cool!

A commercial and video director named Les Rayburn directed the spots. He mixes documentary-style camera work with rich visuals and lighting. It kind of feels like 24 mashed up with a Lifetime movie.

The four DVDs focus on two postal inspectors, Niece and Goddard—kind of the Scully and Mulder of the mail police—investigating a postal crime. (They are all based on real cases.) Dialogue and action are, to the trained security professional, careful and precise expositions of the elements of the particular scam, albeit with a soundtrack. To the director's credit, though, the awareness tools pull off the one thing awareness tools often struggle to achieve—they don't come off as artificial, preachy or kitschy. Everything is part of the storyline. In "Web of Deceit" for example, about online identity theft, Goddard, jet-lagged, in a cab, on his way back from a failed sting in London, calls Niece in her office to talk about their perp, a con named Napier.

Goddard (rubbing his eyes): "Any luck tracking the stolen merchandise?"

Niece (rifling papers): "No, all the stuff was mailed to some college kids in Florida. They forwarded everything to a mail drop in Edinburgh. He recruited them on the Net. Paid them in wire transfers. They thought the whole thing was legit."

Goddard: "What about the number he posted for the bank?"

Niece: "That turns out to be a prepaid cell phone he purchased with another stolen card. Yeah. He only used it for a couple of weeks, then he dumped it."

Goddard (sarcastic): "Great."

Sound just like banter you'd hear on CSI, except you've just learned exactly how reshipping fraud works.

Rayburn's magnum opus is clearly "Dialing for Dollars," a 22-minute epic about a telemarketing outfit scamming senior citizens—including Niece's cancer-stricken dad and his business-savvy (or so he thought) neighbor. The episode opens with frenetic cuts of scenes of the sleazy firm, all men, led by a major-league mook named Park Richardson, who likes to take his employees to strip clubs and give them Ecstasy as bonuses.