White Collar Crimes Research Paper

Ian De Jesus Law Enforcement 1 - 3B 5-1-15

White-Collar Crimes

One would ask why someone with a high position, who is already earning vast amounts of cash or resources, would use backhanded tactics to maintain or advance their power. Unfortunately, the love of money or power have sent what seemed respectable people into corruption. White-collar crimes come in many forms and typically include fraud, bribery, Ponzi, schemes, insider trading, etc. They are mostly motivated by financial gain and are nonviolent crimes. This crisis has been a continuing process since the beginning of man. One could say that it is so due to the greediness of human nature. However, there have been recent efforts by organizations to hunt down these men and women
who have been abusing their powers for their own benefits. Moreover, due to the differing nature of these crimes from regular violent crimes, the necessary judicial process might be different for white-collar crimes. There have been numerous instances of white-collar crimes around the local areas of Texas.
One of those cases occurred in the Rio Grande Valley when the Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos was arrested in 2013 and was sentenced 13 years in prison because he was convicted of misusing his authority by taking bribes in exchange for “service.” Another event of white-collar crime in the Rio Grande is when a Starr County narcotics officer was subdued because he was indicted with the act of being paid thousands of dollars for trying to steal a drug load with a fake seizure report. However, if Texas can be affected by these crimes, other states throughout the nation would most likely be affected too. An example of this would be when a film scheme occurred in California. The owners of a company called Gigapix Studios claimed that they were creating an animated movie for the “Wizard of Oz” called “OZ3D.” They promoted their ideas and encouraged the investors to support their cause and declared that “You’re going to make so much money that your kids and grandkids won’t want for anything.” In truth, out the $8 million raised for the movie, only 5 percent of that actually went towards the creation of the movie because the remaining were used to pay enormous salaries, commissions, fancy office space, and miscellaneous expenses. Eventually, the movie was never made into fruition, and it’s highly likely that the investors never received a refund at all. What makes it more
detestable was that some of the investments were the life savings of the investors. Now that the company of Gigapix was caught on its act, its personnel and its founding members, Christopher Blauvelt and David Pritchard, were sentenced with various charges that would ultimately land them on a prison. Another occurrence of this crime happened in Georgia when a con man named Aubrey Lee Price was sent to 30 years in prison for his crimes. It all started when he asked for money to fund his mission efforts overseas. He then later established his own company called PFG. He racked up many investors from close friends to new clients. However, as the time passed, he started to gamble and make risky investments with their money. He would also make unnecessary adjustments in the transaction documents to prevent his investors from seeing what he has been doing. Later on, Price knew that his finances were about to crumble so he faked his suicide in order to escape the responsibility of his actions. He then left for Mexico and moved to Florida later while becoming a drug dealer. His fall came when his fake ID didn’t pass the routine traffic stop and was arrested. Cases for white-collar crimes don’t solve themselves so there are bound to be organizations responsible for the investigation of these felonies.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation or FBI is one of the groups who look into white-collar crimes. One of their priorities is to combat public corruption at all levels and major white-collar crimes. The Securities and Exchange Commission is also involved in cases that are connected to these type of crimes because one of their roles is to attempt protecting investors and prevent them from falling for financial schemes. The Internal Revenue Service and the United States Treasury might be involved in major cases of white-collar crimes that severely affect the cash flow of the economy due to it becoming unbalanced because of money laundering and bank secrecy violations. The United States Postal Service contribute to stopping these crimes by preventing their service and staff from becoming an asset for fraudulent crimes. Another organization is the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement because they are responsible for diagnosing, investigating, and dismantling vulnerabilities regarding to the nation’s border, economic, transportation, and infrastructure security. This organization is included to the list due to the effects of white-collar crimes in a nation’s economy, infrastructure, and transportation which can be used as a facilitator of these
crimes. Right after the arrest of a suspected person in a white-collar crime, they will put into trial as any criminal would be, but there might be some changes in how their crimes will be put into justice. Unlike regular criminal arrests, they have time to prepare for a trial because they usually become aware of the fact that they are being investigated days to months prior to their arrest. Because of this, they are able to plan out how they can avoid arrest or reduce the punishment given to them. Moreover, in contrast to violent crimes, who have several evidences at best, white-collar crimes include the reviewing of up to thousands of documents, emails, and other forms of evidence. This delays the trial by several weeks and will consume an enormous amount of time. What makes it worse is that in order to obtain evidence, prosecutors must work with various agencies in order to acquire the information they need. However, interagency conflict and the lack of information sharing almost prohibits collaboration due to the fact that vital intel about their organization might be leaked and can give others the advantage. Another issue is that those convicted of white-collar crimes tend to be knowledgeable about the law and will try to find any loopholes in it and expose it to their advantage. Lastly, there have been concerns revolving corporate crime prosecution that focuses on the absence of knowledge in how to define corporate crimes, a way of measuring them, and an effective way to study them. Many argue that there had been numerous misinterpretations of corporate crimes that shouldn’t have been, and that criminologists often include civil and administrative judicial proceedings that end up in violations, warnings, and injunctions as indicators of corporate crime. Due to all of these complications, the prosecutors will have to be vigilant in their steps in solving their cases. They have to be thorough in their investigation and be able to back themselves up in judicial hearings in order to bring these people to justice.