Modern Policing with : 3D Printing in Crime investigation

The world of 3D printing in India fills quite a few people with excitement. Although there is a lot of focus on using this technology from a consumer point of view, there are plenty of other use cases as well. As it turns out, 3D printing service is making quite a lot of headway in the crime scene investigation world. Various crimes have been solved using 3D printers and 3D Printing online, which is quite interesting to take note of.

3D Printing in Crime investigation

1. RECREATING A DEAD PERSON’S FINGERPRINT

One of the more controversial cases involving 3D printing service in India during a crime scene investigation involved the printing of a murder victim’s phone. With this 3D printed cast, police were successful in unlocking the victim’s mobile phone and access all of the data on the device. It is not the first time this method of 3D Printing online is used to solve a crime, though, but this particular story got a lot of media attention for some reason. Police techniques to unlock mobile devices involved in a crime investigation have been a bit controversial as of late. Since the person this particular phone belonged to was incapable of giving permission to unlock the device in the first place, this method seems rather immoral.  Then again, it is believed the 3D printing of this victim’s finger eventually led to the arrest of the person responsible for the murder, which is what is most important. Moreover, the victim’s body was too decayed to get a direct fingerprint, leaving very few options on the table.

2. RECREATING EVIDENCE

Up until this point, crime scene investigations heavily relied on evidence collected from the investigation itself. Footprints, fingerprints and even broken materials can all contribute to solving these cases one way or another. It is evident 3D printing Bangalore promises to be of great aid in this regard, as it can easily replicate footprints or tool mark impressions.

Police officials have to rely on different materials to create these solid pieces of evidence right now, yet a three-dimensional model with online 3D Printing services offers a lot more potential. 

Additionally, in the case of footprints, researchers can create a shoe that would fit said print. Moreover, gunshot victims suffering from injuries where bullets can’t be removed can be “used” to create a tactile piece of evidence.

3. RECONSTRUCTING FACES

In October of 2016, a team of University of South Florida forensic anthropologists teamed up with various artists to solve 20 crimes. All of these cases are related to unidentified and missing persons. 

With the use of 3D printers and affordable 3D Printing services, the teams reconstructed the faces of the people involved. It is an intriguing idea to use 3D printing online for this type of purpose, yet it goes to show how valuable this concept of 3D Printing in Crime can be for law enforcement moving forward.

4. 3D PRINTED SCAN OF A ROOM

One of the first stories to involve 3D printing service and crime solving originates from Japan. Police used a 3D printed scan of a room to reconstruct evidence. At that time, this technique was considered to be highly controversial, yet it allowed the police to ultimately apprehend the person responsible for the crime.  Even though this murder case had gone unsolved for nearly two decades, the introduction of a 3D printer with a good knowledge on online 3D Printing service shed some new light on the case.

THINGS THAT ARE ILLEGAL TO PRINT 3D

Online 3D printing India has revolutionised the world through simplifying manufacturing, democratising production, customising products, and creating jobs.  However, as with any new technology, people have discovered ways to beat the law. The problem is that the legislation in 3D printing Bangalore is pretty lax.

If you didn’t know, here are some items that are prohibited to print in 3D Printing in Crime.

• Assault Weapons

Cody Wilson, a Texas law student, made headlines when he printed and posted blueprints for a plastic gun. These blueprints were downloaded over 100,000 times before the police intervened and had them removed.  3D printing of guns is not controlled for the most part. Although it is okay to produce firearms for personal use without a warrant, there are certain limits. In areas where possession of assault weapons is prohibited, weapons printed at home with 3D Printing service are illegal. Innovators are pushing the limits on the types of weapons that can be 3D printed. Assault weapons, in this case, could be the infamous plasma railgun, where an anonymous person used a printer and the required parts to make a projectile launcher that fires rods made of graphite, aluminium, copper coated tungsten and Teflon at a speed of 560 meters per hour. While the law prohibits the sale of guns to sentenced criminals, online 3D printing India offers a method for them to acquire or make guns without anyone ever knowing about it. Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSiXIDQF990 

• Drugs

3D printing online can be exploited by criminals. Lee Cronin, a Scottish Chemist, is thriving on 3D printed prescription drugs and researchers at Louisiana Tech University have been working on 3D printed drug delivery devices and pharmaceuticals. Drugs come as an obvious dark side to online 3D printing services. The use of 3D printers in drug printing would result in organised crimes. Drug lords would never have to worry about the risk of shipping, capital investment, or the storage options. They may also decide to sell digital blueprints online instead of directly selling drugs.

• Counterfeit Items

Another thing that threatens different institutions is the counterfeit industry when 3D Printing in Crime. A good example is the U.S. dollar that is printed on a special linen-like paper with coloured threads. Although this was meant to protect against duplication, this type of paper works perfectly with 3D printing service. Moreover, when someone wants to print a 3D object, all they need is a 3D printer with a good 3D Printing quote and an electronic design of the object. This is the reason why there are so many counterfeited items like handbags, phones, laptops and more. Counterfeit items jeopardise most people’s intellectual property rights.

• Bio Printing

Bio printing involves the use of a 3D printer to develop body parts. However, Bio printing has already begun with Organovo, a bio printing lab printing eye nerve cells and liver in partnership with the National Centre for Advancing Transnational Science. This process is only authorised in a research lab.

• Handcuff Key

3D printers have a dark side application other than firearms. A while back, A German lock picking group designed a 3D printed key for handcuffs. One member was able to replicate the key just by looking at the size. The worst part is that he uploaded the designs online for free.

• Virus

A special 3D printer is needed to produce a virus which replicates biological substances.  Cambrian Genomics has replicated this. This form of 3D printing online improves the accuracy of DNA reproduction. If your child were born with a rare genetic disease, this technology would help. Production of a virus is illegal for non-authorisation and under development.

• Access Cards and Key

Although 3D printing Bangalore has its advantages, it also has its downsides in that criminals are taking advantage by printing fake facades for cash machines which clone the data on users’ ATM cards. They have gone a step further to make skimmers that look like they are a part of the ATM. Although online 3D printing Bangalore offers a wealth of innovation and opportunity, the law was unprepared for the after effects. 3D printing service in India itself may not be illegal, but it has serious consequences when used in the wrong way. Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H07qABk9GKs

Case Study

Source: Times Newspapers Ltd

There are few things harder to think about than the murder of a child. It truly is a heinous crime, and one made even more incomprehensible when a parent is found to have committed the act. These cases are tragic and difficult to work on, and the story of Ellie Butler is one investigator will remember for a lifetime. In February 2007, 6-year-old Ellie Butler was taken to hospital with severe head and retinal (eye) injuries. The police arrested Ellie’s father, Ben, for inflicting them. Ellie then lived in safety with her maternal grandparents until 2012, before a judge ordered her return to her parents. The return would prove fatal. On 28 October 2013, Ellie was murdered by her father at his home in London. The story shocked the nation. Ellie’s tragic story is one of failure by agencies to protect children from harm. Sadly, it is also a story of how a case that should be clear-cut can be skewed by a lack of evidence and lies. The defence took the stance that Ellie had sustained injuries to her head from falling out of bed. It was up to investigators to prove otherwise. Investigators had a potential murder weapon and Ben’s history of violence, but no way to tie them together. They needed a way to reconstruct the moment of the murder, but traditional forensic techniques led nowhere and were inconclusive. This led the prosecution to 3D printing online.

3D printing a replica of Ellie’s skull

After traditional forensic techniques proved inconclusive, the prosecution turned to 3D Printing in Crime to recreate Ellie’s skull for testing. A digital CT scan of Ellie’s head and X-ray data was used to produce two 3D printed replicas of her skull. A pathologist then used these models to perform tests to attempt to tie the potential murder weapon to the crime – and it worked. The pathologist was able to determine the full circumstances of the assault and tie the potential murder weapon to the crime. The 3D printed replica skulls proved pivotal in determining that the weapon used had “two geometrically distinct surfaces” which matched the claw hammer found at the scene. It’s important to note the claw hammer had been cleaned and there was no useful DNA evidence on it. In this case, 3D printing and digital scanning helped solve a crime that could have otherwise seen Ben Butler walk away a free man. Up until this point, investigators had little to tie the two most important factors of the case together. The 3D printed skulls were presented as evidence in the murder trial, a first for the British Legal system.

Technologies and further crime cases

Ellie’s case may be the first to use 3D printed skulls as physical evidence in a murder trial in Britain, but it isn’t the first to use 3D Printing in Crime. 3D printed bones helped put a murderer behind bars in 2015, and in the same year, a 3D printed murder weapon ( bottle) was used to demonstrate how a man held a bottle before using it as a lethal weapon. Highly detailed skulls and bone replicas are not the remnants of fused filament fabrication printers in real crime environments. The – technology of choice is stereolithography – SLA 3D Printing service or digital light processing (DLP) because these 3D printing technologies are more capable of producing the lifelike details demanded by digital scans and X-ray data. 

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