There are many white collar crimes in Pennsylvania. These crimes usually do not make big news headlines unless they involve a large corporation or well-known person because they do not involve violence. White collar crimes are financial crimes that usually occur within a business setting.
One white collar crime that happens often is money laundering. Money laundering, according to the FBI, is when illegal money is used in a way that turns it into legal money. It often involves complex banking or financial maneuvers. Like many other crimes of this nature, investigations of money laundering usually involve the FBI or other federal agencies.
Focus
The FBI generally only gets involved in high-scale operations. It will focus mainly on those who are professionals, i.e., people who engage in these activities on a large scale and have done so for some time.
Connections
One of the reasons the FBI often becomes so involved in money laundering cases is that those who launder money often have ties to other activities that garner more attention. This includes drug trafficking and terrorist activity. Because individuals may know that the authorities may be able to trace money acquired during these types of activities back to its source, they often take steps to conceal its origins.
Collaboration between agencies
To uncover money laundering operations, the FBI will use its own investigators, but it also works with other agencies, such as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
The IRS is another federal agency that takes money laundering very seriously because people often launder money to avoid paying taxes. Al Capone is one famous case of an individual who ultimately went to prison, not for other offenses the authorities investigated, but for tax evasion.