7 White-Collar Crimes That Any Corporate Person Can Be Investigated For
by Abdul Aziz Mondal Legal Published on: 01 November 2021 Last Updated on: 08 November 2024
In today’s modern electronic world, white-collar crimes are pretty common – these are the non-violent corporate or government crimes committed for monetary or personal gain.
In one study, almost half of the households in the US reported that they have been the victims of a white-collar crime in recent years. Moreover, 62 percent of people reported having experienced at least one kind of white-collar crime in their lives.
These statistics are obviously horrible, however, the worst part of white-collar crimes is that it is surprisingly easy to be framed for them even when you are innocent, especially if you work in corporate and you are unaware about your company’s side-businesses that might not be hundred percent legal.
Despite the fact that white-collar crimes are intensely common, a lot of people are not aware of the severity of white-collar crimes, what are the white-collar offenses one can be charged with, and what are the consequences of being investigated for such crimes.
These things are important to know if you ever face investigation for white-collar crimes, especially if your work falls into the category of corporate or government business. So, let’s talk about the 7 most common white-collar crimes that you can be investigated for.
If you, in fact, have a risk of being investigated for any such crime, hit up a white-collar crime attorney right now!
1. Money Laundering
Money laundering is a kind of white-collar crime that is very common in shady businesses. Money laundering occurs when a person obtains a significant amount of money through any illegal operation and uses that money to hold certain transactions that can “clean” the money.
Money laundering is a process to “clean” the “dirty” money. For instance, if a drug dealer makes $10k through the sale of illegal drugs, that money would be illegal and a drug dealer wouldn’t be able to spend it without getting caught. Therefore, they would open a small pretend business to launder the illegal money and clean it through business transactions. They would then spend the money as if it was made by the business.
In such cases, people who are working in a business that launders money are at risk of being investigated for being an accessory to the crime, even if they didn’t know it.
Similar Reads: Benefits of Undergoing Money Laundering Risk Assessments
2. Bank Fraud
Bank fraud is another common white-collar crime that victimizes the bank, or any credit institution in some cases. There are different types of bank fraud.
For instance, taking a loan from the bank and never returning it, depositing counterfeit currency, cashing out a fake cheque, doing identity fraud to access someone else’s account, and more.
3. Money Embezzlement
Money embezzlement refers to stealing the money that doesn’t belong to you and that you are supposed to take care of only.
Incorporate firms, high-positioned employees commit money embezzlement by transferring money from the company’s bank account to their own bank account. This is indirectly stealing, although they try to get away with it by cooking the books and fudging the numbers.
In such cases, people who are involved in the transaction, like someone from the finance department and the person who deposits the cheque, can be investigated for money embezzlement even though they were just following orders.
4. Securities Fraud
Securities fraud is a violation of the code of the stock market, thus, it is also known as stock fraud or investment fraud. It is an unlawful practice that involves giving false information to someone regarding the stock market that induces the investors to sell or purchase the stock. This results in loss, most of the time.
However, it wouldn’t have resulted in the loss if they weren’t given the wrong information by the fraudster who violated the securities law.
In such cases, people who were only passing the information or were a part of the communication channel could be investigated for securities fraud, even though they didn’t know the information was wrong.
Those that feel they were the victim of investment fraud may want to consider hiring an investment and securities fraud lawyer. Getting professional advice and legal guidance can really help with recovering lost funds or damages.
5. Insider Trading
Insider trading is a crime that can be committed by an individual or a group working in the organization that results in the loss of their own company. It occurs when a certain individual is leaking out information regarding a company’s asset, liabilities, equity, finances, or operations to external parties and get paid in return.
This can result in the company’s breakdown in the stock market and the company’s confidential documents are leaked to the investors and public.
The person who commits insider trading is officially a criminal because they were contractually supposed to not leak any of the company’s confidential information to competitors or investors.
Corporate workers always have to be cautious about what they should say and in front of anyone because any slip of the tongue about their work can be used to accuse them of being an insider trader.
Insider trading lawyers work towards the clarity of reputation and charges that are against the person who is being accused of being an insider trader.
6. Telemarketing Fraud
Telemarketing fraud is a broad term that includes crimes committed by corporate marketing and sales individuals against the general public. These scams are done over the phone or by text messages.
Ever receive a message that you’ve won a certain cash prize or a property even though you didn’t sign up for any competition? Or, ever receive a call from someone who’s asking for your personal information, selling you something that sounds very fishy, or asking your bank account details?
These are all examples of telemarketing scams. And although some of us are aware enough to not respond to certain texts and calls, a lot of us are not, and we end up being a victim of such scams.
Some of the most common telemarketing scams are:
- Imposter scams (where the scammer pretends to be from a legit government organization).
- Cash, property, and lottery winnings scams
- Debt relief scams
- Credit repair schemes fraud
- Charity scams
- Business and investment scams
- Extended car warranties scam
- “Free” trials (those are never free).
- Loan scams
- Travel and timeshare scams
Scammers try to act nice and friendly on phone and take your information, which can be used for identity theft – another white-collar crime.
7. Healthcare Fraud
These days, the healthcare industry is no less than a corporate one. Although we all think of individuals who work in healthcare as blessings in disguise, some of them aren’t really blessing at all, but thieves and scammers.
Individuals working in healthcare, who can commit fraud, include suppliers, transporters, hospital staff, nurses, doctors, and even patients. These frauds can be anything from charging patients for services that were not provided by the hospital to taking money for covered service by claiming it uncovered.
Some common healthcare scams committed by doctors are:
- Billing for services not provided
- Kickbacks – getting paid by another doctor to refer patients to them.
- Falsifying diagnoses to get more time and cash
- Prescribing unnecessary medicines to patients for commissions
- Upcoding for expensive services
- Having hospital staff deal with patients and getting paid by the government for spending time in the hospital.
Apart from doctors, nurses, and hospital staff, external factors like transporters and patients can also commit fraud in different ways. Any healthcare worker can be investigated or accused of being an accessory to such white-collar crimes even when they didn’t know they were a part of it.
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