Federal agents swarmed through a couple of downtown office suites one recent morning, digging for evidence of a Ponzi scheme at a local Internet service provider/online marketing company.

It is a scene that's more and more common in these days of burgeoning greed and its partner, white-collar crime. People seeking out-of-this-world returns fall for something that promises too much.

What may come as a surprise is the outfit those special agents work for: the U.S. Secret Service.

Most of us are familiar with the Secret Service's most un-secret job -- protecting the president and his family, as well as foreign heads of state when they visit the United States. But curbing financial crime has been one of its duties from the beginning.

Founded in 1865 to thwart counterfeiters, the Secret Service was given the job of presidential protection after the 1901 assassination of President William McKinley in Buffalo, N.Y.

John Kirkwood, special agent in charge of the Minneapolis division, said his agents' role in investigating financial crime has grown and become more tech-savvy as criminals find new ways to cheat and steal.

Credit card fraud, telecommunications fraud, computer fraud, identity fraud and similar crimes are all on the menu. It's a huge task for an agency that numbers only 3,200 special agents nationally, along with 1,300 uniformed officers.

Kirkwood wouldn't say how many agents work in the local division, which covers Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.

He did say: "We have an ample number of agents for what our mission dictates."

One of the ways the Secret Service gets the most bang for its (noncounterfeit) buck, Kirkwood said, is partnering with other local, state and federal law enforcement agencies -- such as the Minnesota Financial Crimes Task Force.

"What we try to focus on is the quality and the significance of cases. High dollar, high community impact types of cases."

James Walsh • 612-673-7428