Chapter 13: Enterprise Crime: White-Collar, Green, and Transnational Organized Crime

Price fixing

A conspiracy to set and control the price of a necessary commodity is considered an absolute violation of the act.

Tying arrangement

A corporation requires customers of one of its services to use other services it offers. For example, it would be an illegal restraint of trade if a rail-Road required that companies doing business with it or supplying it with materials ship all goods they produce on trains owned by the rail line. Source: 'Northern Pacific Railways v. United States, 356 U.S. 1 (1958).

Inflated appraisals

A corrupt home appraiser acts in collusion with a borrower and provides a misleading appraisal report to the lender. The report inaccurately states an inflated property value. Source: FBI, "Common Fraud Schemes," 2014, http://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/fraud (accessed June 2016).

White-collar swindle

A crime in which people use an ongoing business enterprise to fraudulently expropriate money from unsuspecting victims. - Subprime mortgage swindles. - Foreclosure rescue scams. - Religious swindles.

Transnational organized crime (TOC)

A criminal enterprise that involves the planning and execution of the distribution of illicit materials or services by groups or networks of individuals working in more than one country. A form of organized crime operating across national borders.

Fictitious/stolen identity

A fictitious/stolen identity may be used on the loan application. The applicant may be involved in an identity theft scheme: the applicant's name, personal identifying information, and credit history are used without the true person's knowledge. Source: FBI, "Common Fraud Schemes," 2014, http://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/fraud (accessed June 2016).

Pink slime

A substance made by gathering waste trimmings, cooking them so the fat separates easily from the muscle, and using a centrifuge to complete the separation.

Biocentric perspective

According to this approach, environmental harm is viewed as any human activity that disrupts a bio-system, destroying plant and animal life. This more radical approach would criminalize any intentional or negligent human activity or manipulation that impacts negatively on the earths natural resources. Environmental harm, according to this view, is much greater than what is defined by law as environmental crimes. As criminologist Rob White points out, this is because some of the most ecologically destructive activities, such as clear feeling of old-growth forests, are quite legal. Environmental crimes are typically oriented toward protecting humans and their property and have a limited interest in the interests of animals and plants. Environmental laws protect animals and fish processing plants that treat nature and wildlife simply and mainly as resources for human exploitation. Human beings are the cause of environmental harm and need to be controlled. According to this approach, environmental harm is viewed as any human activity that disrupts a biosystem, destroying plant and animal life.

Legalist perspective

According to this perspective, environmental crimes are violations of existing criminal laws designed protect people, the environment, or both. This definition would include crimes against workers such as occupational health and safety crimes, as well as laws designed to protect nature and the environment (e.g., Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act). Environmental crimes are violations of existing criminal laws designed to protect people, the environment or both.

Environmental justice perspective

According to this view, limiting environmental crimes to actual violations of the criminal law is too narrow. A great deal of environmental damage occurs in third-world nations desperate for funds and willing to give mining and oil companies a free hand to develop resources. These nations have meager regulatory laws and therefore allow businesses wide latitude in environmental contamination that would be forbidden in the United States. In addition, these advocates believe that corporations themselves have attempted to co-opt or manipulate environmental laws, thereby limiting their scope and reach. Executives fear that the environmental movement will force changes in their production practices and place limits on their growth and corporate power. Some try to co-opt green laws by public relations and advertising campaigns that suggest that they are doing everything in their power to respect the environment, thereby reducing the need for government regulation. Criminologists must take a broader view of green crimes than the law allows. According to this view, limiting environmental crimes to actual violations of the criminal law is too narrow.

Green crime

Acts involving illegal environmental harm that violate environmental laws and regulations. Involves a wide range of actions and outcomes that harm the environment and that stem from decisions about what is produced, where it is produced, and how it is produced. Environmental destruction and ____ _____ may outweigh attention to safety, with subsequent catastrophic consequences.

Compliance strategies

Aim for law conformity without the necessity of detecting, processing, or penalizing individual violators.

Ponzi scheme

An investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors. _____ _____ organizers often solicit new investors by promising to invest funds and opportunities claimed to generate higher returns with little or no risk. In many _____ _____, the fraudsters focus on attracting new money to make promised payments to earlier stage investors into use for personal expenses, instead of engaging in any legitimate investment activity. With little or no legitimate earnings, the schemes require a consistent flow of money for new investors to continue. _____ _____ tend to collapse when it becomes difficult to recruit new investors or a large number of investors ask to cash out. Why are they called ____ ____? The term comes from one Charles Ponzi, who duped thousands of New England residents into investing in a postage stamp speculation scheme back in the 1920s. At a time when the annual interest rate for bank accounts was 5%, Ponzi promised investors that he could provide a 50% return in just 90 days. Ponzi initially bought a small number of international mail coupons in support of his scheme, but quickly switched to using incoming funds to pay off earlier investors. The most famous recent _____ _____ involved financier Bernard Madoff, whose Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC handled the money of celebrities such as Kevin Bacon and Steven Spielberg. Madoff had not actually invested any of the money but instead deposited it in various banks and for a while paid dividends and interest on spending large sums on himself and his family. When investors wanted to cash in their stock, they found out all the money was gone. Losses amounted to about $18 billion, and Madoff was sentenced to life in prison. Source: "Ponzi Schemes," Securities and Exchange Commission, http://www.sec.gov/answers/ponzi.htm (accessed June 2016).

Equity skimming

An investor may use a straw buyer, false income documents, and false credit reports to obtain a mortgage loan in the straw buyers name. Subsequent to closing, the straw buyer signs the property over to the investor in a quit claim deed, which relinquishes all rights to the property and provides no guarantee to title. The investor does not make any mortgage payments and rents the property until foreclosure takes place several months later. Source: FBI, "Common Fraud Schemes," 2014, http://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/fraud (accessed June 2016).

Group boycott

An organization or company boycotts retail stores that do not comply with its rules or desires.

• Corporate execs, in order to increase profits, may engage in environmental crimes. • Green criminals may disguise their acts through elaborate corporate structures employing corrupt business practices. • Organize criminals may buy legitimate businesses to launder money.

Because enterprise crimes are so connected, these 3 broad categories of crime often overlap. Give examples.

Influence peddling in business

Business officials forcing those wishing to work with the company to pay a bribe or kickback to gain a contract. Payola—routine practice in the record industry of paying radio stations and DJs to play songs.

Fuk Ching

Chinese organized criminal group in the United States. They have been involved in smuggling, street violence, and human trafficking.

Management fraud

Converting or receiving company assets for personal benefit.

The harms perspective

Crime is a social construction and should be expanded to include all serious social harms.

1. White-collar crime. 2. Green crime. 3. (Transnational) organized crime.

Crimes of elicit entrepreneurship can be divided into what 3 distinct categories?

Chiseling

Crimes that involve using illegal means to cheat an organization, its consumers, or both on a regular basis.

Endangered Species Act (1973)

Designed to protect and recover endangered and threatened species of fish, wildlife and plants in the United States and beyond. The law works in part by protecting species habitats.

Oil Pollution Act (1990)

Enacted in the aftermath of the 'Exxon Valdez' oil spill in Alaska's Prince William sound, this law streamlines federal response to oil spills by requiring oil storage facilities and vessels to prepare spill-response plans and provide for their rapid implementation. The law also increases polluters' liability for cleanup costs and damage to natural resources.

Eurasian Organized Crime Working Group

Established in 1994, it meets to discuss and jointly address the transnational aspects of Eurasian organized crime that impact member countries and the international community in general. The member countries are Canada, Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the United States, and Russia.

Clean Water Act (1972)

Establishes and maintains goals and standards for U.S. water quality and purity. It has been amended several times, most prominently in 1987 to increase controls on toxic pollutants, and in 1990, to more effectively address the hazard of oil spills.

Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act

Federal legislation that enables prosecutors to bring additional criminal or civil charges against people whose multiple criminal acts constitute a conspiracy. RICO features monetary penalties that allow the government to confiscate all profits derived from criminal activities. Originally intended to be used against organized criminals, RICO has also been used against white-collar criminals.

Division of markets

Firms divide a region into territories, and each firm agrees not to compete in the others' territories.

Exploitation

Forcing victims to pay for services to which they have a clear right. An individual abuses his or her power or position in an organization to coerce people into making payments to him or her for services to which they are already entitled.

Red Wa

Gangsters from Thailand. They are involved in manufacturing and trafficking methamphetamine.

Rational choice: greed

Greedy people rationally choose to take shortcuts to acquire wealth believing that the potential profits far outweigh future punishments.

Citizen groups

Have become more active in environmental monitoring and combating green crime, since law enforcement efforts may be stratified by class and race.

Insider trading

Illegal buying of stock in a company based on information provided by someone who has a fiduciary interest in the company, such as an employee or an attorney or accountant retained by the firm. Federal laws and rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission require that all profits from such trading be returned and provide for both fines and a prison sentence.

• Illegal logging exhaust forests, destroys wildlife, and damages is habitats. Illegal logging in central Africa is destroying the habitats and threatening the survival of populations of the great apes, including gorillas and chimpanzees. • It causes ruinous damage to the forest, including deforestation and forest degradation worldwide. The destruction of forest cover can cause flash floods and landslides that have killed thousands of people. By reducing forest cover, illegal logging impairs the ability of land to absorb carbon emissions. This is especially troublesome because forests are vital to mitigating climate change because they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Deforestation accounts for an estimated 17% of global carbon emissions, greater than from all the world's air, road, rail, and shipping traffic combined. Source: Ibid.

Illegal logging can have severe environmental and social impact. Give examples.

• It creates unsustainable economic devastation in the poorest countries. Vietnam, for example, has lost a third of its forest cover; in nearby Cambodia, illegal logging is at least 10 times the size of the legal harvest. These rates of extraction are clearly unsustainable, destroying valuable sources of employment and export revenues for the future. • The substantial revenues from illegal logging fund national and regional conflict. In Cambodia, for several years Khmer Rouge insurgence were sustained primarily by revenue from logging areas under their control. Source: Brack, "Illegal Logging".

Illegal logging costs billions each year in government revenue, impairing the ability of third-world nations to provide needed social services. Give examples.

White collar crime in general

In the 1930s, the distinguished criminologist Edwin Sutherland first used the phrase "white-collar crime" to describe the criminal activities of the rich and powerful. "A crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation"

Prime bank investment swindle

In these schemes, perpetrators claim to have access to a secret trading program endorsed by large financial institutions such as the Federal Reserve Bank, U.S. Treasury Department, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and so on. Perpetrators often claim the unusually high rates of return and low risk are the result of a worldwide "secret" exchange open only to the worlds largest financial institutions. Victims are often drawn into prime bank investment fraud because the criminals use sophisticated terms and legal-looking documents, and claim the investments are insured against loss. Source: FBI, "Financial Crimes Report to the Public, Fiscal Years 2010-2011," http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/financial-crimes-report-2010-2011/financial-crimes-report-2010-2011#Financial (accessed June 2016).

Characteristics of TOC

Income is generated from supply of illegal goods and services, including drugs, sex slaves, arms, and pornography. Efforts to combat transnational organized crime are typically in the hands of federal agencies.

Securities chiseling

Individuals engage in deceptive practices that are prohibited by federal law.

Short weighting

Intentionally tampering with the accuracy of scales used to weigh products in markets.

Deterrence strategies

Involve detecting criminal violations, determining who is responsible, and penalizing the offenders to deter future violations.

White crime

Involves illegal activities of people and institutions whose acknowledged purpose is illegal profit through legitimate business transactions.

Organized crime

Involves illegal activities of people and organizations whose acknowledged purpose is profit through illegitimate business enterprise.

White-Collar Embezzlement and Employee Fraud

Involves individuals' use of their positions to steal from the company, embezzle company funds, or appropriate company property for themselves.

Yakuza

Japanese criminal group. They are often involved in multinational criminal activities, including human trafficking, gambling, prostitution, and undermining licit businesses.

Sherman Antitrust Act

Law that subjects to criminal or civil sanctions any person "who shall make any contract or engage in any combination of conspiracy" in restraint of interstate commerce.

Activities of TOC

Narcotics distribution, extortion, gambling, pornography, and cargo theft rings. Members use cyberspace to communicate and promote their explicit activities.

Client fraud

Occurs when an organization that either (a) advances credit. (b) provides loans, (c) supports people financially, or (d) reimburses them for services provided to a third party is the target of criminal activity. Theft by an economic client from an organization that advances credit to its clients or sometimes reimburses them for services rendered. - Health care fraud. - Bank fraud. - Tax evasion.

Enterprise crimes

Ongoing illegal activities by an individual or a group of individuals involved in commerce that either violate the laws regulating legitimate business or whose acknowledged purpose is profit through illegitimate commercial enterprise.

Jao Pho

Organized crime group in Thailand. They are often involved in illegal politics and business activity.

• Systematic use of violence, including both of threats and use of force. • Hierarchical structure. • Limited or exclusive membership. • Specialization in types of crime and a division of labor. • Military-style discipline, with strict rules and regulations for the organization as a whole. • Possession of high tech equipment, including military weapons. • Threats, blackmail, and violence used to penetrate business management and assume control of commercial enterprises or, in some instances, to found their own enterprises with money from their criminal activities.

Organized crime in Russia shares other characteristics that are common to organized crime elsewhere in the world. What are these characteristics?

Rationalization/neutralization view

People develop rationalizations for white-collar crime. Offenders use rationalizations to resolve the conflict they experience over engaging in illegal behavior. Denying the Victim: - Corporate offenders neutralizing wrongdoing when the target is a fellow business person or business organization.

Professional chiseling

Professional who use their positions to chisel clients/patients.

Fraudulent property flipping

Property is purchased, falsely appraised at a higher value, and then quickly sold at a higher value than the market. A home worth $200,000 may be appraised for $800,000 or higher and sold to a co-conspirator who gets a mortgage based on a phony appraisal. The new owner quickly defaults on the loan. This type of scheme typically involves one or more of the following: fraudulent appraisals, doctored loan documentation, and/or inflating buyer income. Kickbacks to buyers, investors, property/loan brokers, appraisers, or title company employees are common in the scheme. Source: FBI, "Common Fraud Schemes," 2014, http://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/fraud (accessed June 2016).

• Derive income from racketeering or the unlawful collection of debts and use or investment of such income. • Acquire through racketeering an interest in or control over any enterprise engaged in interstate or foreign commerce. • Conduct business through a pattern of racketeering. • Conspire to use racketeering as a means of making income, collecting loans, or conducting business.

RICO is designed to limit patterns of organized criminal activity by prohibiting involvement in acts intended to do what?

• Lied in the permit process for obtaining a drilling license. • Tried to cover up the severity of the spill. • Knowing of negligence in construction, chose to ignore the danger it imposed. • Engaged in or approved of unsafe, risky, or dangerous methods to remove the drill, knowing that such methods could injure those on board. Source: 'The Guardian,' "Manslaughter Charges Dropped Against Two BP Employees in Deepwater Spill," December 2, 2015 http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/03/manslaughter-charges-dropped-bp-employees-deepwater-horizon-oil-spill; Thomas Catan and Guy Chazan, "Spill Draws Criminal Probe," 'Wall Street Journal,' June 2, 2010, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704875604575280983140254458.html; Tyson Slocum, "BP: The Worst Safety and Environmental Record of All Oil Companies operating in the United States," 'Monthly Review,' http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/slocum060510.html; Helene Cooper and Peter Baker, "U.S. Opens Criminal Inquiry into Oil Spill," 'New York Times,' June 1, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/02/us/02spill.html; Alternative Fines Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3571(d); Terry Wade and Kristen Hays, "BP Reaches $18.7 Billion Settlement over Deadly 2010 Spill," Reuters, July 2, 2015 http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/02/us-bp-gulfmexico-settlement-idUSKCNOPC1BW20150702. (URLs accessed June 2016).

Regarding the Deepwater Horizon incident, it would be a criminal act if, for example, employees of BP or its subcontractors, Transocean and Halliburton...

Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (1986).

Requires companies to disclose information about toxic chemicals they release into the air and water and dispose of on land.

Pyramid scheme

Similar to Ponzi schemes, the money collected from newer victims of the fraud is paid to earlier victims to provide a veneer of legitimacy. In _____ _____ however, the victims themselves are induced to recruit further victims through the payment of recruitment commissions. Source: FBI, "Financial Crimes Report to the Public, Fiscal Years 2010-2011," http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/financial-crimes-report-2010-2011/financial-crimes-report-2010-2011#Financial (accessed June 2016).

Transnational gangs

Some local street gangs have expanded from local street gangs to national mega-gangs. International gangs have emerged in Asia, Eastern Europe, North, South, and Latin America—usually in nations whose governments are too weak to present effective opposition. Easier international travel, trade, and financial transactions have enabled international targets and criminal networks in more prosperous countries.

• The illegal transportation, treatment, storage, or disposal of hazardous waste. • Oil spills. • Fraudulent certification of automobile smog tests. Source: Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, Environmental Crimes, http://da.lacounty.gov/operations/environmental-crimes.

Some of the more common environmental offenses investigated and prosecuted by the Environmental Crimes Strike Force in Los Angeles County include...

Rational choice: Need

Some people turn to crime to fulfill an overwhelming financial or psychological need.

Blue-collar pilferage

Systematic theft of company property by employees.

Heijin

Taiwanese gangsters who are often executives in large corporations. They are involved in white collar crimes, such as illegal stock trading and bribery, and sometimes run for public office.

White-collar law enforcement systems

The Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution gives the federal government the authority to regulate white-collar crime. At the federal level, detection of white-collar crime is primarily in the hands of administrative departments and agencies.

• The illegal disposal of hazardous waste. • The export of hazardous waste without the permission of the receiving country. • The illegal discharge of pollutants to a body of water of the United States. • The removal and disposal of regulated asbestos-containing materials in a manner inconsistent with the law and regulations. • The illegal importation of certain restricted or regulated chemicals into United States. • Tampering with a drinking water supply. • Mail fraud. • Wire fraud. • Conspiracy and money laundering related to environmental criminal activities.

The Criminal Investigation Division of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA CID) investigates allegations of criminal wrongdoing prohibited by various environmental statutes. Such investigations involve but are not limited to...

• 24% of households and 17% of individuals reported experiencing at least one form of white-collar crime within the previous year. • White collar crimes happened at both household and individual levels, most often as a result of credit card fraud, price misrepresentation, and unnecessary repairs. • More than half (55%) of the households surveyed reported at least one external recipient or agency (e.g., credit card company, business or person involved, law-enforcement, action agency, personal attorney). • Only about 12% of the crimes reported to law-enforcement or some other crime control agency. • The general public views white-collar crime seriously, considering them more damaging than traditional crimes.

The National White Collar Crime Center's national survey gives a picture of how widespread white-collar crime is and how many citizens are affected by enterprise crimes. Give examples.

Controlling green crime

The United States and most sovereign nations have passed laws making it a crime to pollute or damage the environment. The major enforcement arm against environmental crimes is the Environmental Protection Agency, which was given full law enforcement authority in 1988.

Silent second

The buyer of a property borrows the down payment from the seller through the issuance of a non-disclosed second mortgage. The primary lender believes the borrower has invested their own money in the down payment, when in fact it is borrowed. The second mortgage may not be recorded to further conceal its status from the primary lender. Source: FBI, "Common Fraud Schemes," 2014, http://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/fraud (accessed June 2016).

Nominee loans/straw buyers

The identity of the borrower is concealed through the use of a nominee who allows the borrower to use the nominees name and credit history to apply for a loan. Source: FBI, "Common Fraud Schemes," 2014, http://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/fraud (accessed June 2016).

Foreclosure schemes

The perpetrator identifies homeowners who are at risk of defaulting on loans or whose houses are already in foreclosure. Perpetrators mislead the homeowners into believing that they can save their homes in exchange for a transfer of the deed and upfront fees. The perpetrator profits from these schemes by remortgaging the property or pocketing fees paid by the homeowner. Source: FBI, "Common Fraud Schemes," 2014, http://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/fraud (accessed June 2016).

• Billing for services that were never rendered by using genuine patient information to fabricate entire claims or by adding to claims with charges for procedures or services that did not take place. • Billing for more expensive services or procedures that were actually provided or performed, commonly known as "upcoding." This practice requires "inflation" of the patient's diagnosis code to a more serious condition consistent with the false procedure code. • Performing medically unnecessary services solely for the purpose of generating insurance payments. This scheme occurs most often in nerve-conduction and other diagnostic-testing schemes. Some Southern California clinics performed unnecessary, and sometimes harmful, surgeries on patients who had been recruited and paid to have these unnecessary surgeries performed. • Misrepresenting non-covered treatments as medically necessary covered treatments for purposes of obtaining insurance payments. This scheme occurs in cosmetic surgery in which non-covered cosmetic procedures such as nose jobs, tummy tucks, liposuction, or breast augmentation's are billed to patient's insurers as deviated septum repairs, hernia repairs, or lumpectomies. Source: National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association, "The Challenge of Health Care Fraud," 2014, http://www.nhcaa.org/resources/health-care-anti-fraud-resources/the-challenge-of-health-care-fraud.aspx.

There are numerous health-care related schemes, including...

Foreign currency exchange swindle

These schemes are characterized by the use of false or deceptive sales practices, alleging high rates of return for minimal risk, to induce victims to invest in the foreign currency exchange market. The touted transactions either never occur, are inconsistent with the original sales pitches, or executed for the sole purpose of generating excessive trading conditions in breach of fiduciary responsibilities to the victim client. Source: FBI, "Financial Crimes Report to the Public, Fiscal Years 2010-2011," http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/financial-crimes-report-2010-2011/financial-crimes-report-2010-2011#Financial (accessed June 2016).

Commodities swindle

These schemes typically involve the deceptive or fraudulent sale of commodity investments. Victims are duped into providing funds for commodities transactions that either never occur or are inconsistent with the original sales pitches. Alternatively, commodities market participants may attempt to illegally manipulate the market for a commodity by such actions as fraudulently reporting price information or cornering the market to artificially increase the price of the targeted commodity. Source: FBI, "Financial Crimes Report to the Public, Fiscal Years 2010-2011," http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/financial-crimes-report-2010-2011/financial-crimes-report-2010-2011#Financial (accessed June 2016).

Advance fee fraud

This category of fraud encompasses a broad variety of schemes designed to induce their victims into remitting up-front payments in exchange for the promise of goods, services, and/or prizes. Victims are informed that in order to participate in a promising investment opportunity. They must first pay various taxes and/or fees. Source: FBI, "Financial Crimes Report to the Public, Fiscal Years 2010-2011," http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/financial-crimes-report-2010-2011/financial-crimes-report-2010-2011#Financial (accessed June 2016).

Central European Working Group

This group is part of a project that brings together the FBI and Central European law enforcement agencies to discuss cooperative investigative matters covering the broad spectrum of Eurasian organized crime. A principal concern is the growing presence of Russian and other Eurasian organized criminals in central Europe and the United States. The initiative works on practical interaction between the participating agencies to establish lines of communication and working relationships, to develop strategies and tactics to address transnational organized crime matters impacting the region, and to identify potential common targets.

Air loans

This is a nonexistent property loan where there is usually no collateral. An example of an _____ _____ would be where a broker invents borrowers and properties, establishes accounts for payments, and maintains custodial accounts for escrows. They may set up an office with a bank of telephones, each one used as the employer, appraiser, credit agency, and so on, for verification purposes. Source: FBI, "Common Fraud Schemes," 2014, http://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/fraud (accessed June 2016).

Southeast European Cooperative Initiative

This is an international organization intended to coordinate police and customs regional actions for preventing and combating transborder crime. It is headquartered in Bucharest, Romania, and has 12 fully participating member countries. The United States has been one of the 14 countries with observer status since 1998. The initiative's center serves as a clearinghouse for information and intelligence sharing, allowing the quick exchange of information in a professional and trustworthy environment. The initiative also supports specialized task forces for countering transborder crime such as the trafficking of people, drugs, and cars; smuggling; financial crimes; terrorism; and other serious transborder crimes.

1. Eurasian Organized Crime Working Group. 2. Central European Working Group. 3. Southeast European Cooperative Initiative.

To combat the influence and reach of Eurasian organized crime the FBI is involved in what groups and activities?

Organized and transnational organized crime

Traces back to the sixteenth century. The mafia remains active in the U.S. today with an estimated 25,000 members and 250,000 affiliates worldwide.

Controlling TOC

Typically in the hands of federal agencies. There are several international groups aimed and combating transnational gangs: - Eurasian Organized Crime Working Group. - Central European Working Group. - Southeast European Cooperative Initiative. - Anti-Organized Crime Laws: -- RICO Act

Triads

Underground criminal societies based in Hong Kong. They control secret markets and bus routes and are often involved in money laundering and drug trafficking.

Mafia in decline

United States mafia has been in decline due to high-profile criminal prosecutions and to aging of bosses.

Influence peddling

Using an institutional position to grant favors and sell information to which their co-conspirators are not entitled. Individuals holding important institutional positions sell power, influence, and information. In criminal justice - criminal justice actors accepting bribes

• Excess fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides from agricultural land and residential areas. • Oil, grease, and toxic chemicals from urban runoff and energy production. • Sediment from improperly managed construction sites, crop and forest lands, and eroding stream-banks. • Salt from irrigation practices and acid drainage from abandoned minds. • Bacteria and nutrients from livestock, pet waste, and faulty septic systems.

Water pollution includes the disposal into rivers, lakes, and streams of...

• Fraudulent property flipping. • Silent second. • Nominee loans/straw buyers. • Fictitious/stolen identity • Inflated appraisals. • Foreclosure schemes. • Equity skimming. • Air loans. • Hedge fund fraud. Source: FBI, "Common Fraud Schemes," 2014, http://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/fraud (accessed June 2016).

What are some common bank fraud schemes?

• The pyramid scheme. • Prime bank investment swindle. • Advance fee fraud. • Commodities swindle. • Foreign currency exchange swindle.

What are some common financial swindles?

1. Yakuza. 2. Fuk Ching. 3. Triads. 4. Heijin. 5. Jao Pho. 6. Red Wa. Source: National Institute of Justice, " Major Transnational Organized Crime Groups," http://www.nij.gov/topics/crime/organized-crime/pages/major-groups.aspx.

What are some of the best-known Asian crime groups?

1. Clean Water Act (1972). 2. Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (1986). 3. Endangered Species Act (1973). 4. Oil Pollution Act (1990).

What are some of the environmental laws in the U.S?

• Russian criminals make extensive use of the state governmental apparatus to protect and promote their criminal activities. For example, most businesses in Russia—legal, quasi-legal, and illegal—must operate within the protection of a 'krysha' (roof). This protection is often provided by police or security officials employed outside their "official" capacities for this purpose. In other cases, officials are "silent partners" in criminal enterprises that they, in turn, protect. • As communism collapsed, the privatization of industry resulted in the massive use of state funds for criminal gain. Valuable properties are purchased through insider deals for much less than their true value and then resold for lucrative profits. • Criminals have been able to directly influence the states domestic and foreign policy to promote the interests of organized crime, either by obtaining public office themselves or by buying public officials.

What are some specific characteristics of Russian organized crime in the post-Soviet era?

• You must act NOW or the offer won't be good. • You've won a "free" gift, vacation, or prize—but you have to pay for "postage and handling" or other charges. • You must send money, give a credit card or bank account number, or have a check picked up by courier (you may hear this before you have had a chance to consider the offer carefully.) • You don't need to check out the company with anyone. • You don't need any written information about their company or the references. You can't afford to miss this "high profit, no risk" offer. Source: FBI, "Telemarketing Fraud," https://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/fraud.

What are some typical telemarketing swindle come-ons?

1. Legalist. 2. Environmental justice. 3. Biocentric.

What are the 3 views to define the concept of green crime?

1. Division of markets. 2. Tying arrangement. 3. Group boycott. 4. Price fixing.

What are the 4 types of market conditions that are considered so inherently anticompetitive that federal courts, through the Sherman Antitrust Act, have defined them as illegal per se, without regard to facts or circumstances of the case?

1. Greed. 2. Need. 3. Rationalization/neutralization view 4. Cultural view. 5. Self-control view

What are the causes of enterprise crime?

1. Illegal logging. 2. Illegal wildlife exports. 3. Illegal fishing. 4. Illegal dumping. 5. Illegal polluting.

What are the forms of green crime?

• Is a conspiratorial activity, involving the coordination of numerous people in the planning and execution of illegal acts or in the pursuit of a legitimate objective by unlawful means (e.g., threatening a legitimate business to get a stake in it). • Involves continuous commitment by primary members, although individuals with specialized skills may be brought in as needed. • Is usually structured along hierarchical lines—a chieftain supported by close advisers, lower subordinates, and so on. • Has economic gain as its primary goal, although power and status may also be motivating factors. Economic gain is achieved through global supply of illegal goods and services, including drugs, sex slaves, arms, and pornography. • In addition to providing illegal material such as narcotics, contemporary global syndicates engage in business crime such as laundering illegal money through legitimate businesses, land fraud, and computer crime. • Transnational criminal syndicates employ predatory tactics, such as intimidation, violence, and corruption. • Groups are quick and effective in controlling and disciplining their members, associates, and victims, and will not hesitate to use lethal violence against those who flaunt organizational rules. • This crime depends heavily on the instruments of the IT age: the Internet, global communications, rapid global transportation systems, universal banking systems, and global credit card and payment systems. • Groups do not include terror organizations, though there may be overlap. Some terror groups are involved in criminality to fund their political objectives, and some have morphed from politically motivated organizations to ones solely involved in for-profit criminal activity. Transnational criminal organizations may aid terror groups with transportation and communication.

What are the general traits of transnational organized crime?

• It is committed in more than one state or nation. • It is committed in one state or nation but a substantial part of its preparation, planning, direction, or control takes place in another state or nation. • It is committed in one state or nation but involves an organized criminal group that engages in criminal activities in more than one state or nation. • It is committed one state of nation but has substantial effects in another state of nation. Source: James O. Finckenauer and Ko-lin Chin, 'Asian Transnational Organized Crime and Its Impact on the United States (Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, 2007), http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/214186.pdf.

When is an offense considered transnational?

1. Compliance. 2. Deterrence.

White collar criminal enforcement typically involves what 2 strategies designed to control organizational deviance?

Corporate crime

White-collar crime involving a legal violation by a corporate entity, such as price fixing, restraint of trade, or hazardous waste dumping. Powerful institutions or their representatives willfully violate the laws that restrain these institutions from doing social harm or require them to do social good—also referred to as organizational crime. - Illegal restraint of trade and price fixing. - Deceptive pricing. - False claims advertising. - Worker safety violations.

Hedge fund fraud (HFs)

______ _____ are private investment partnerships that routinely accept only high-wealth clients willing to invest at least hundreds of thousands of dollars. Historically, these high-wealth investors were deemed "financially sophisticated," and, as a result, _____ have been unregulated and are not required to register with any federal or state regulatory agency. More recently, many middle-age investors have been exposed to ______ through ancillary investments such as pensions and endowments. There are about 9,000 _____ currently operating, with over a trillion dollars in assets under management. Source: FBI, "Common Fraud Schemes," 2014, http://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/fraud (accessed June 2016).

Green criminology

concerned with the study of environmental harm, environmental laws, and regulations.