Ex International Web Police Members Speak Out!

Suzanna Westerlund - Government Employee

Below is a statement from Suzanna Westerlund who is an employee of the New Zealand Government. Suzanna raises some excellent points and sums up InterGOV very well with her below statements. The items in bold are items which Suzanna intended to be bolded and not items which have been bolded by myself.

[I certify that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, the testimonial provided below with regards to my dealings with InterGOV International and one Peter Hampton is true and correct]

I first happened across InterGOV International whilst undertaking volunteer duties for another volunteer organization. I was quite impressed with the site upon reading their stated purpose which included the following paragraphs:

“Our agency is comprised of Law Enforcement Agencies, government officials, sworn police officers and civilian volunteers located in 61 countries throughout the world. The cooperation of both government and law enforcement agencies in these nations allow us to address criminal activities anywhere in the world. Our presence on the Internet allows instant communication between victims of crimes and the appropriate agency to assist them.

Investigations range from minor issues such as e-mail and chat room abuse, to major crimes, such as: fraud, child abuse, drug trafficking, stalking, destructive hacking and terrorism.

Our database contains records of every criminal activity reported since 1986. These records assist us in developing new procedures to prevent crime and protect the Internet community.”

It seemed too good to be true. Here I thought was a volunteer organization that had the complete backing of local and international government and law enforcement agencies. As a government employee, I knew I had a lot to offer the organization with my extensive experience in coaching new recruits, investigative and research techniques, internal fraud investigations, communications and case management. I wondered why I had never heard of InterGOV before that day but in my enthusiasm to simply be a part of the action, I put all questions aside and applied for membership.

In late 2000, within days of receiving my “welcome” letter to IG, I was advised to attend the next Directors Advisory Council meeting. I was taken aback by the email that was sent to me from the Executive Director of Operations. I queried whether they had the right person and he advised that I had been listed as the Director of Scamwatch (without any expression of interest on my part). I declined to attend the Directors Advisory Council meeting and also the position of Director until I had at least gone through the basic training and learned more about the internal workings of the organization. This was the first incident that made me a little wary of InterGOV.

Basic training (as well as the intermediate and advanced training that was offered) was very disappointing and not what I expected from an organization that boasted investigations of major crimes such as destructive hacking and terrorism.

After basic training, I was appointed to the position of Director of Personnel and was shortly voted in as Executive Director. During this time I began to get a feel of the organization. I would say that I spent close to 30 hours per week on InterGOV related duties alone. I enjoyed my position because it gave me a very extensive view of the day-to-day operations as well as provide an opportunity to familiarise myself with the policies and procedures for each Department, their staffing levels and its turnovers. I can honestly say that during my time there the average number of active staff was around 75 more or less. I can neither confirm nor deny the number of covert staff on duty because I never saw evidence of their existence.

It was around this time that I was approached by IT personnel at my government job (my previous govt job, not the current one) concerning my activities at InterGOV as InterGOV correspondence was flooding my inbox at a rate of 50-70+ emails a day, on some days the emails increased to the 100s (They were using eGroups at that time and I had elected to receive all mail individually rather than as a daily summary. The emails were meeting reminders, ebs checks, staff inquiries, new applicant notifications, line tests etc. I was later advised by IT to disassociate myself with InterGOV with no reason given. I continued my membership but decided from then on to keep my govt work and my IG work separate and use my alternate surname and an external email address for IG/Web Police correspondence.

About the ‘President’: At first I found Peter Hampton to be charming, courteous and very down-to-earth. He was a person I confided in and I could talk openly to. My trust in him led to conversations via telephone and chat (IRC and ICQ messenger). It was during one of these conversations that I learned from Peter himself that he intercepted his staff’s emails and ICQ messages to weed out any possible ‘spies’. He said that he had many enemies and he liked to keep an eye on them and even allowed them to join the organization under false pretences. He also stated that he joined other organisations also to find out what they know. This bothered me quite a bit. It was the first time I realised that things weren’t quite on the up and up. I became concerned and just a tad paranoid at this stage.

I shared my concerns with another Executive Director who advised me of other unethical actions made by Peter Hampton. I learned what was previously shared to you by Captain Chet Bowen as well as information regarding a former Executive Director of International Web Police who was lured by Peter Hampton to the United States with promise of employment only to be left penniless. I cannot verify the facts personally as I did not personally know the victim. I am not sure what became of him and his family but I will disclose his name to you in case you are interested in tracking him down for a story.

It was at this time that I became extremely concerned with the organization. I knew there were plenty of like-minded individuals who were only there to provide a public service so I continued my membership in the hopes that things would turn around…
The focus needed to be on public safety and awareness rather than the cloak-and-dagger politics that were emerging from within the “ranks”.

I started to spread myself thin by helping out with the backlogged complaints that needed to go through the Case Screening Unit. It was there that I found out that crime complaints were backlogged 6 months. I spent several hours a week screening cases and noted that there were several child pornography and cyberstalking complaints that were not given the immediate attention that they deserved. At this time I also started helping out with investigations but it seemed like an insurmountable task.

It was around this time that I was appointed ‘Senior Assistant Vice President’ of InterGOV, Russ Kollmansberger to the position of ‘Executive Director’ of International Web Police and Brian Heathfield to the position of ‘Vice President’ of InterGOV.

During the Senior Advisory Staff meetings those of us who were concerned about the backlogged cases raised it with the team but Peter Hampton always gave the crime cases a very low priority. Instead, he favoured and strongly encouraged items relating to fundraising activities and marketing strategies. Peter started quoting astronomical figures for website overheads in an effort to get support for his stance on fundraising. Upon discussing these costs with the Executive Director of Web Services at the time, I had found discrepancies with the costs Peter had claimed to the actual costs paid for the sites. He had deliberately misled the staff. Further digging had supported this fact. There was several staff present at those meetings who were concerned with the state of things and decided to meet in secret to discuss the situation that had divided the organization. Many of us had felt misled and used. It became very apparent that all Peter Hampton cared about was fundraising and power playing his staff. It was our intention to leave InterGOV once we were able to warn the remaining staff (who were blissfully unaware of what was really going on) about Peter’s underlying motivation for the org. Peter however had enlisted in the aid of his so-called "special ops" team to snoop on the staff and had obtained a log of our meetings and the planned walk-out before our plan could be properly executed.

On my last day at InterGOV, I had emailed Pete advising him of my intention to lodge a federal complaint against him for fraud. He responded to me by threatening a counter-complaint to my employer for making unsubstantiated allegations against him. I assured him that proof of his actions were obtainable.

In April 2001, Peter lost his Senior Assistant Vice President, his Executive Director and his Director of IWP as well as other Executive Directors, Directors, Deputy Directors and Investigators (including his only 2 LEOs) in a mass walk-out of staff who refused to put Peter’s needs ahead of the public. The empty titles meant nothing to us. Personal integrity was what mattered.

The six months of service I gave to InterGOV has taught me some lifelong lessons. Hypocrisy and abuse comes in all forms and we should always be vigilant lest we fall victim to it.