White Collar Crime - General
This means for doing a crime was done NOT using force, weapons, nor property destruction.
What is non-physical means?
The name of the law enforcement entity that can serve a Civil Investigative Demand
What is a State Office of the Attorney General?
What is Embezzlement?
In Cressey's "Fraud Triangle", the 3 things that must be present for a fraud to occur.
What are pressure, opportunity, and rationalization?
Term for taking money from a criminal activity and making it appear as it it came from legitimate activities.
What is Money Laundering?
The legal term for anything of value being exchanged.
What is "consideration"?
In the pyramid case that we looked at, the law enforcement entity that can pursue a criminal felony case.
What is the local police department? (Criminal cases may not happen at State/Federal levels because the amount of money lost is too small, the scheme is small, OR their related State statute does NOT reside in their criminal code, instead is in their civil code)
Legal term referring to the fact that you were given an asset to manage, or to return later.
What is "Lawful possession"?
The legal term for deceiving someone to get their money or other assets.
What is Fraud?
Term for the stage of money laundering where money from an illegal activity is first placed into the financial system
What is "Placement"?
The name for parts of the actual offense your agency has to prove in order to make a case.
What is "Material element"? (not about intent, about the actions themselves; what was actually DONE)
To prosecute the leaders of a pyramid scheme, in addition to proving the financial facts of the case, and misrepresentation, this is the additional thing that must also be proven.
What is intent?
Legal term referring to the fact that you treated an asset entrusted to you to manage, process, or return later, as your own asset.
What is "Unlawful conversion"?
Type of fraud being committed when the perpetrator targets those in a shared community, like a church.
What is Affinity fraud?
Term for the stage of money laundering where money from an illegal activity is moved around using multiple transactions, to obscure its origin.
What is "Layering"?
The terms for a legal business that relies on the people selling its product to recruit others to sell the product.
What is a Multi-level Marketing (MLM) business? (What makes it legal is that there is more profit from sales than from recruiting others)
These 3 things are how intent is proven in a White Collar crime case like a pyramid scheme.
What are documents, testimony, and circumstantial evidence?
Legal term for the relationship where a person is entrusted with an asset to manage in the best interest of the person entrusting it.
What is "Fiduciary relationship"?
Term for a fraud similar to a pyramid scheme, but in the context of investors and investing.
What is a Ponzi scheme? (new investors are needed to keep it going, and because you can't recruit new clients forever, it collapses, just like a pyramid scheme--See the Madoff case)
Term for the stage of money laundering where money from an illegal activity has been laundered and is extracted for use in the legal economy.
What is "Integration"?
The largest single "scam" category of White Collar crime.
Imposter scams (someone pretending to be someone else)
The term for an illegal business that relies on, and gets most of its profit from, the people selling its product recruiting others to buy into the business.
What is a pyramid scheme? (illegal because most profits come from recruiting, not product sales which means it will collapse)
Legal terms for taking property that was never entrusted to you.
What is "Theft/Larceny"? (you will see both words in statutes for historical reasons; they mean the same thing).
In Cressey's "Fraud Triangle", this element refers to the story people tell themselves to feel they are still a good person, even though committing fraud.
What is Rationalization?
Term describing money launderers depositing just UNDER 10K into bank accounts to avoid triggering a bank's mandatory Suspicious Activity Report (SAR)?
What is "Smurfing" (also called "Structuring")