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Arrested for fraud or financial crimes, such as bank or check fraud (writing bad checks), credit card fraud or identity theft, forgery, tax or loan fraud? The following information is designed to help individuals and businesses facing financial fraud prosecutions or a financial crimes investigation.
The Financial Crimes Division (FCD) of the government plans, reviews, and coordinates criminal investigations involving Financial Systems Crimes, including the following:
- Bank fraud
- Access device fraud
- Telemarketing and telecommunications fraud (cellular and hard wire)
- Computer fraud and ecommerce fraud
- Automated payment systems and teller machines fraud
- Direct deposit fraud
The Financial Crimes Division also carries out financial crimes investigation involving U.S. Treasury Checks, U.S. Savings Bonds, U.S. Treasury Notes, bonds, and bills and:
- Forgery
- False claims
- Alteration
- False impersonation
The Financial Crimes Division will also:
1. Investigate electronic funds transfer (EFT) including Treasury disbursements
2. Investigate fraud within Treasury payment systems
3. Investigate fraud involving U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Coupons and Authority to Participate (ATP) cards
4. Investigate Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation fraud
5. Investigate Farm Credit Administration violations
6. Investigate fraud and related activity in connection with identification documents and fraudulent commercial, fictitious instruments, foreign securities.
The Financial Crimes Division also coordinates the activities of the U.S. Secret Service Organized Crimes Program, and financial crimes prosecutions and financial crimes investigations of overseas money laundering.
Financial fraud prosecutions include a range of crimes, such as:
- Credit card fraud
- Identity theft
- Tax fraud
- Consolidation loans fraud
- Fraud involving government contracts
- Procurement fraud
- Illegal tax shelters(link to tax fraud)
- Complex financial transactions supporting terrorism and criminal conspiracies
- Asset removal/seizures
- Money laundering activities involving drug smuggling organizations and other illegal enterprises
- Medicare and other insurance frauds
- Electronic funds transfer fraud
- Employee embezzlement
- Unauthorized access to government data systems
- Other complex fraud cases using or involving computer systems
Arrested for Fraud or Financial Crimes? The following are primary offenses investigated by the Secret Service
Forgery
The U.S. government issues hundreds of millions of checks and bonds each year. The secret service will investigate criminals who specialize in stealing and forging checks or bonds from mail boxes in apartment complexes and private homes. During a fraudulent transaction, a check or bond thief usually forges the payee’s signature and presents false identification.
Identity theft and Identity Crimes
Identity crimes are defined as the unauthorized us of personal or financial identifiers for financial gain or to gain something of value and/or facilitate other crimes. The Secret Service is the primary federal agency in charge of financial crimes investigations commonly referred to as identity theft/ and fraud and its related activities under Title 18, United States Code, Section 1028. Identity theft and identity crimes are some of the fastest growing and most serious economic crimes in the United States for both financial institutions and persons whose identifying information has been illegally used. The Secret Service will record criminal complaints, assists identity theft victims in contacting other relevant investigative and consumer protection agencies and works with other federal, state and local law enforcement and reporting agencies to identify offenders.
Identity theft and crimes investigated by the Secret Service include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Credit Card/Access Device Fraud (Skimming)
- Check Fraud
- Bank Fraud
- False Identification Fraud Passport/Visa Fraud
- Identity Theft
- Financial Fraud Prosecutions and Financial Crimes Investigation
Access Device Fraud
The Secret Service is the primary federal government agency in charge of financial crimes investigation of access device fraud and its related activities (found under Title 18, United States Code, Section 1029). Although it is commonly called the credit card statute, this law involves credit card fraud and other crimes involving access devices including:
- Personal identification numbers
- Credit card or debit card account numbers
- Debit cards
- Automated teller machine (ATM) cards
- Computer passwords
- Long-distance access codes
- Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) contained within cellular telephones that assign billing
Computer Fraud
Computer financial crimes investigations is authorized by Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 1030. Computer crimes include unauthorized access to protected computers, theft of data to commit identity theft, denial of service attacks used for extortion or disruption of ecommerce fraud and malicious software (malware) distribution to include viruses intended for financial gain.
Fraudulent and Counterfeit Identification
Counterfeit and fraudulent identification is defined as the unauthorized use with intent to produce, transfer or possess false identification to defraud the U.S. Government. Desktop publishing software/hardware is most commonly used to counterfeit and produce different forms of identification used to obtain funds illegally.
Electronic Benefits Transfer Fraud
The Secret Service handles financial crimes investigations of food stamp fraud. The possession or use of food stamp coupons, “Authorization to Participate” cards or Electronic Benefit Transfer cards by unauthorized persons compromises the integrity of the Food Stamp Program and is a criminal violation of the Food Stamp Act.
Money Laundering
The Money Laundering Control Act makes it a crime to launder proceeds of certain criminal offenses, called “specified unlawful activities,” which are defined under:
- Title 18, U.S. Code Sections 1956 and 1957
- Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 1961 (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act)
The government Secret Service agency is in charge of monitoring money laundering crimes through other financial crimes such as financial institution fraud, food stamp fraud, access device fraud and counterfeiting of U.S. currency.
Advance Fee Fraud
The offenders of advance fee fraud, known internationally as “4-1-9 fraud” (after the section of the Nigerian penal code which addresses these schemes), are often very creative and innovative. A large number of victims are enticed into believing they have been singled out from the masses to share in multi-million dollar windfall profits for no apparent reason.
Asset Forfeiture
The Secret Service is authorized to seize and forfeit assets in financial fraud prosecutions and financial crimes investigations. The Secret Service provides assistance to financial crimes investigations offices by giving them direction, expertise and temporary support personnel, as needed, in financial crimes investigations seizure and during the seizure and the forfeiture of assets.
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