White Collar Crime Wears Many Different Faces, Hurts People in All Walks of Life

Lying, stealing and cheating.

In a nutshell, that’s what we’re talking about when we use the term “white collar crime.” This term applies to a complete range of frauds that are committed by business and government professionals. These criminals abuse their employers or their position of trust and the consequences can be very painful.

A single scam can ruin a company or devastate a family by obliterating their life savings. It can also cost investors billions of dollars. According to the FBI, today’s fraud schemes are more sophisticated than ever.

White collar crime takes many forms and here are just a few examples:

• Asset forfeiture / money laundering
• Embezzlement
• Bankruptcy fraud
• Health care fraud
• Insurance fraud
• Mass marketing fraud
• Piracy / Intellectual Property theft
• Identity theft
• Internet fraud
• Public corruption / Government fraud
• Adoption scams
• Antitrust / Price-Fixing
• Jury Duty scams
• Social Security fraud
• Sports Memorabilia fraud
• Timeshare fraud
• Work-at-Home scams

Believe me, the list is endless and we’ve seen so many prime cases in the news. From the corporate fraud perpetrated by Enron, to the personal investment schemes of Bernie Madoff, to the embezzlement case of former Koss Corporation executive Sujata “Sue” Sachdeva who stole $34 million from her former employer, these crimes are all-too-real and they leave an astonishing trail of victims each and every year.

The cases our firm sees usually involve embezzlement, misuse of funds or some type of abuse of government office to benefit the perpetrators. The money gets diverted from a business, organization, or charitable use for which it was intended.

Unfortunately, a bad economy like we have in our country today only serves to fuel these types of crimes. An employee, for example, finds himself not doing as well as he used to and faces a tighter financial squeeze at home.  The temptation to ease his own private burden at the expense of others is often more than he can resist. 

Further compounding the problem is the fact that, in this day and age, some employers, for example, entrust their employees with more than they should without doing their due diligence.  There aren’t sufficient checks and balances to catch a crime like embezzlement in its earliest stages.

We’ve also seen white collar crime in municipalities and government where there are allegations of misuse of funds and writing checks that shouldn’t be written. Again, people are cheating and stealing money, one way or another. Not only are they committing these types of crimes more frequently these days, they’re doing it in much high dollar amounts.

So, what can be done about it?

Depending on the size of the company involved, detecting embezzlement in smaller dollar amounts can be very difficult.  A couple hundred dollars here or maybe a thousand dollars there may not make a dent in the bottom line. But over a long period of time, it can really add up. The checks and balances should include an auditing system to detect things like questionable checks being written, strange accounts being opened up or payroll checks being sent to people who are no longer employees.

It’s really a case-by-case scenario for how each company does business in terms of how they do their payroll, using physical cash as well as checking accounts, savings accounts and lines of credit.

One important key is to make sure that more than one person has complete access, autonomy and authority to the payroll and that other people are keeping an eye on the entire process as well, guarding against strange expenditures that aren’t benefiting the company as they should be.

If you suspect you or your company is being victimized by any of these crimes, you can report fraud to your local FBI office by visiting www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field.  You can also submit a tip online at https://tips.fbi.gov/.  To report Internet fraud, go to http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx.

About Attorney Mark Powers
Attorney Mark Powers is a partner at the criminal defense law firm of Huppertz & Powers, S.C. in Waukesha. Previously, Powers served as an Assistant District Attorney with the Waukesha County District Attorney's office and is currently serving as a municipal judge in North Prairie. He focuses in the area of criminal defense, and has handled many cases involving operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated, domestic disputes, and drug offenses.

Powers attended Valparaiso University School of Law, where he received his Juris Doctorate. Prior to law school, Mark attended the University of Wisconsin, Lacrosse where he received his bachelor of science in Political Science.

For more information, please call 262.549.5979 or visit www.waukeshacriminalattorneys.com.