White-collar crime is not overtly violent. It’s effected with deceit, conspiracy, violation of trust and abuse of power, rather than threat or use of physical violence.
White-collar criminal activity includes a litany of offenses in different categories such as government fraud, environmental crimes, public corruption and financial crimes. Another way of envisioning the white-collar crime world is as follows:
- Crimes of theft: Embezzlement, extortion forgery, fraud
- Crimes against public administration: Official misconduct, obstruction of justice, bribery, perjury
- Regulatory offenses: Unfair trade practices; and administrative, environmental, labor and manufacturing violations
The cost to society for this aggregated malfeasance per year is hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions of dollars.
One might dismiss this accounting and suggest an affluent society has its economic costs and holes. However, the buck does not stop there.
The cost to society in terms of deaths from occupation-related disease or injury, unsafe products, environmental pollution and unnecessary surgery well exceeds annual rates of homicide.
Florida CFO holds forth at an Orlando news conference
As reported by WESH2, on Thursday, June 8, Florida’s chief financial officer announced that the investigation into the allegations of insurance fraud following Hurricane Ian is going to widen to include fraudulent conduct related to Hurricanes Irma and Nicole.
A number of independent adjusters, people who are enlisted after a major storm to provide damage estimates, have attested that insurance companies routinely altered their estimates so homeowners who sustained losses during those major storms would be underpaid.
Multiple companies engaged in this practice impacting thousands of claimants.
Patronis is determined to follow the facts wherever they lead and to build a watertight case.