“Bloodless, white collar crime”

“The son of a Philadelphia mob boss infamous for his violent reign was indicted today for a bloodless, white collar crime: a scheme to defraud a Texas financial firm out of $12 million.”

– abc news, ‘Little Nicky’ Scarfo’s Son Busted in Jersey

Within hours of finishing my post on organized crime and the “Easy Button”, I stumbled across this article involving ‘Little Nicky’. Allegedly, Little Nicky and his friends had plans to take over FirstPlus Financial Group, a publicly traded company, by replacing the board with representatives under their control, and using the company to purchase reportedly worthless companies created for the purpose. Prosecutors allege that the scheme cost FirstPlus $12 million.

The scheme unraveled as a result of a three-year investigation by the FBI. That gives you an idea of how difficult organized crime is to combat. If it takes the FBI – with all of their powers – three years to investigate and trigger indictments, the mob had a solid plan in place. There is no indication of how the plan ultimately fell apart, but for at least a short period, it appeared to work. Dismiss members of organized crime as being “dumb”, or unable to commit white collar crime at your peril.

Preparing for this type of attack is way beyond the scope of this post, but, I wanted to provide a specific example of organized crime and white collar crime. It can, and does happen…

Need a writer that understands fraud? When you hire me to write an article, blog post, newsletter or white paper you get an accomplished writer that is also an expert in fraud.

paul@mccormackwrites.com