Objectives
- Identify the agents involved in exposing white collar crime
- Assess the qualities of a white collar crime investigator
- Analyze functional unit and individual responsibilities in constructing a white collar crime investigative team
- Distinguish working relationships between civil and criminal investigative teams and assess how teams with varying goals can effectively cooperate
Introduction
Even most highly competent fraud investigators will be ineffective in implementing a white collar crime enforcement effort if investigators are not properly organized to do their jobs. The ways in which investigators share responsibilities, communicate, cooperate, and supervise can have a very strong influence on how well they do, separately and together.
Organization for detection and investigation of white collar criminal activity, and related abuses, will of course differ depending upon resources available and the location and function of the agency involved. What would be appropriate for a large urban center, might not be fully appropriate for a less populous locality. Different approaches are necessary, depending on whether investigators primarily focus on criminal or civil remedies, and on the kind of agency in which the white collar effort is located, e.g., police, prosecutor’s office, state attorney general’s office, municipal consumer protection office, regulatory agencies, etc. Nonetheless, there are certain general standards which should be kept in mind and which are discussed below. These standards should not be regarded as unvarying directives but rather should be considered as guidelines and as an itemization of issues which should be taken into account in developing or changing an organization.
In the section after the one immediately below, various types and aspects of intra- and inter-organization are discussed in the light of these standards.
ORGANIZATIONAL STANDARDS
Coordinating Investigative and Legal Skills
This standard may appear obvious, but the point is that both investigative and legal skills need to be brought to bear on each possible lead or case which is brought to the attention of an agency. Any agency which moves forward with great investigative skill but without understanding what information is needed to make a legal case, or consideration of legal admissibility of evidence gathered will not only be ineffective but will, in the long run, become demoralized by frustrations stemming directly from failure to successfully coordinate skills.
On the other hand, prosecutors who do not concern themselves with the imagination, skill, and difficulty of investigative work will not be able to effectively marshal the capabilities of investigators to secure the evidence needed for convictions. This elemental point is sometimes ignored; investigators and lawyers may recognize but not sufficiently appreciate the problems the other faces and the ways in which the other must go about his or her business and may therefore put off d