Financial crimes, including counterfeiting, securities fraud, embezzlement, and antitrust activities, can have a significant impact on personal finances and financial markets. Counterfeiting can corrupt the monetary system, while securities fraud involves illegal manipulation of the financial market. Embezzlement occurs when someone in charge of funds misuses them, and antitrust activities involve monopolization or price fixing. Close examination of financial records can help reveal signs of embezzlement.
Financial crimes, sometimes referred to as “white collar” crimes, are non-violent criminal acts that involve the theft or misuse of money. Financial crimes are sometimes considered less important than other types of crime because violence is not used, but in reality they can have a huge impact on personal finances and even entire financial markets. There are many different types of financial crime, including forgery, securities fraud, embezzlement, antitrust activities, and many other categories.
Counterfeiting can be a seriously damaging crime, as it corrupts the monetary system. Counterfeiting involves the use of counterfeit money, such as falsely manufactured banknotes and coins. This crime can also include altering real money to resemble more valuable versions, such as altering a $10 United States Dollar (USD) bill to resemble a $100 United States Dollar bill. On a large scale, counterfeiting can disrupt the flow of inflation and deflation by falsely adding more money to a controlled system.
Securities fraud is a broad area of financial crime that involves the illegal manipulation of the financial market. Financial crimes that fall into this category include insider trading, prime rates, and misrepresentation of value. Insider trading occurs when a person with undisclosed information about a stock or investment uses the information to buy or sell shares with an entity that does not have access to the same information. Prime rates and misrepresentation involve artificially inflating or deflating the value of shares to manipulate the market, such as sending an email or blog posting false or misleading information about a planned acquisition.
Embezzlement occurs when someone in charge of funds for your safekeeping, such as a wealth manager or financial manager, uses the funds without authorization. Embezzlement can often happen between trusted friends or even family members, but it can also happen on a simple business front. Close examination of financial records by the owner or owner of the fund can help reveal signs of embezzlement, such as missing funds, duplicate checks, or accounting errors.
In regions with a free market economy, antitrust financial crime represents a serious systemic risk. Antitrust activities involve the restriction of trade through monopolization of an industry or through measures such as price fixing. One of the most famous antitrust cases in history is the 1911 US Supreme Court decision against Standard Oil, an oil production company started by John Rockefeller that controlled nearly the entire US oil market at the height of the his power. Under the Sherman Act of 1890, Standard Oil was found guilty of conspiring to create a monopoly and divided into more than 30 separate companies.
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