Scholarly Activity: White Collar-Crime

Unit 7 Scholarly Activity

Columbia Southern University

White collar-crime has grown increasingly over the past couple of years. There are more people taking things that are not theirs, and no one knowing who it is that robbed them. People think that there are only a couple of crimes that are considered white-collar crime, and that is because they have never researched what white-collar crime is. There are a lot of people that get away with crimes that are considered white-collar crimes, because most of the time the police cannot catch them.

There are many different kinds of crimes that are called white-collar crimes. The one I have heard about is bank fraud when someone tries to trick the bank into giving them funds that are not theirs, which in turns defrauds the bank. Blackmail is when someone demands something from someone and if the person does not get it they threaten them with either bodily harm to them or their family, destroy their property, or leak a secret that a person has that they do not want to get out which is why it is considered a white-collar crime. Another white-collar crime that I have heard about is money laundering. Money laundering is when a person makes money illegally and invests or makes it seem like the money is coming from a legitimate source.

There are two crimes that I have heard about for years, and have been warned about and even seen it on t.v. is called a Ponzi scheme. This is where someone acts as a business owner and seeks out investors in their business. The business owner is promising these investors that they will get a big return on their investment in the end. The business shows the investors that have been with the company that they are making money by giving them profit from the new investors’ money. And either the business owner stop getting money or runs off with all the money leaving the investors with nothing. The second one is called a pyramid scheme. A pyramid scheme is when a person is offered a chance to be a part of a company disturbing a product at a certain price. How it is works is the person is supposed to be selling a product but instead are inclined to get people be a part of the company because that is how they will make the most money. If a person gets someone to join the company then a certain amount of the money that they gave to start distributing will go to the person that referred them. The next person says the same thing to a potential prospect. Then the trend goes on until there are no more potential investors and the pyramid scheme collapses.

There are plenty other white-collar crimes such as market manipulation, broker embezzlement, commodities fraud, promissory note fraud, investment fraud, health care fraud, identity theft, corporate fraud, etc. There is no one that cannot be a victim of a white-collar crime. If you want to invest in something that is new make sure you do your research, and not just the places the person tells you to look at. Make sure to keep all personal items, passwords, and information so no one can steal it. Victims try these things because they are trying to get money and not thinking about where the person is getting this information. If a person tries to get you to do something that you feel is not right call the proper authorities.

I think it is very difficult to enforce these laws on white-collar. There are so many avenues that no one really knows if something is crime or not. A lot of people that commit these crimes either know how to cover their tracks or have hired someone to cover their tracks. These people do not often talk about what they have going on with others, and when or if they do that is when they get caught. People who commit these crimes are very strategic and smart. They definitely do leave a paper trail of any kind. A lot of people do not get caught when doing white-collar crimes, and one of the reasons why is, no one is really paying attention to it. The criminals do it right in plain sight, and no one thinks twice about what they are doing especially if they are the boss.

References

Schmalleger, F. (2016). Criminology (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Pearson.

Federal Bureau of Investigation. (n.d.). What we investigate: White-collar crime. Retrieved from https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/white-collar-crime