White-collar crimes are crimes committed by people in their line of duty either in businesses or
in government professionals. White-collar crimes are mostly committed to personal financial
advantages and are frequently handled by people ranked with high social standards. The main
purpose of the white-collar crime is securing a personal or business advantage, get property gain/
privileged services and acquire money. Collars misrepresent finances to mislead the regulator in
an organization by committing fraudulent investment where returns are overstated and risks less
stated or not stated. Some examples of white-collar crimes are embezzlement, money laundering,
security fraud, and corporate fraud.
Money laundering
Money laundering is the practice of acquiring money earned from illegal activities like drug
trafficking, corruption, terrorism, human trafficking, and healthcare fraud. Criminals tend to
make the money look like it's earned from the legal business where this laundering process
returns the money to the launderer in an indirect way. Effort and time are considered by
enforcing strategies that won't raise any considered suspicions. Money laundering involves three
steps; placement, layering, and integration. Placement involves the process of moving dirty
money into a legitimate economy keeping it away from its source. The money then moves
through financial institutions and businesses. Placement can occur in different ways like; sending
small amounts to banks, purchasing foreign money with illegal revenues and placing money
away from source organizations. Placement is a very risky stage especially when crossing money
on borders with high security. The second money Laundering stage is layering; this stage
involves making illegal money hard to detect and moving it as further from the source. The
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collar makes layering very complicated by moving international funds from their source and
creates a deliberately complicated audit through a series of financial transactions. The integration
process then takes place where the money is taken back to the economy by the criminal; the
criminal may purchase a property through this legal money. The money then is received through
a source like a salary or a wage and it's not easy to detect the money once it gets back to the
economy for most criminals even allow it to be taxed. The government enhances ways of
detecting and deterring dirty money through regularly coordinating money laundering with local
enforcement agencies, federal and the state.
Embezzlement
In the embezzlement process, persons withhold assets entrusted to them by an organization and
converse the assets on themselves. For example, an advocate can embezzle funds from the trust
accounts or a partner can embezzle funds from a joint bank account. Embezzlement is performed
with precautions that occur without the knowledge of the affected person(s). It mostly involves a
small portion of the entrusted funds or resources to avoid the detection of fraud. The victims
realize afterward that some funds or resources are missing. Embezzlement is a criminal offense
which, may be charged on fraudulence and criminal conversion.
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Corporate fraud
Corporate fraud is intentionally misrepresenting company funds and resources perpetrated by
corporate and government institutions. Like in embezzlement, corporate fraud is not detected at
its early stage. The government tries to prevent fraud with policies and laws that help law
enforcement detect scheme. Fraud mostly incurs losses in an organization that can cause job loss
or imprisonment for the criminals charged guilty. Audit and Legal regulations detect and prevent
corporate fraud.
Security fraud
In the security fraud, criminals misrepresent information used by investors to make decisions; it
can also be termed as investment fraud which is a serious crime involving the investment world.
Security fraud may take many forms; High-yield investment fraud involves guarantees of high
rates of return claiming there are no involved risks. Ponzi and pyramid security frauds use the
funds of investors to pay investors caught upon the arrangement process.
Conclusion
White-collar crimes are crimes committed by educated people and professional elites. It can have
a large economic impact on society when losses are incurred on businesses, organizations and
the government white-collar crimes also increase cost. It is therefore of great importance to put
remedy for white-collar crimes through detection and elimination.
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References
Clinard, M., Quinney, R., & Wildeman, J. (2014). Criminal behavior systems: A typology.
Routledge.
Friedrichs, D. O. (2009). Trusted criminals: White collar crime in contemporary society.
Cengage Learning.
Benson, M. L., Madensen, T. D., & Eck, J. E. (2009). White-collar crime from an opportunity
perspective. In The criminology of white-collar crime (pp. 175-193). Springer, NewYork, NY.