White collar crime and its changing dimensions in India
Meaning Of White Collar Crime
. This notion was laid down for the first time in the field of criminology by Prof. Edwin Sutherland in 1941. He defined white collar crime as “crime committed by persons of respectability and high social status in course of their occupation”. Examples of it include fraudulent advertisements, infringement of patents, publication of falsified balance sheet of business, passing of goods, concealment of defects in the commodity for sale etc. These white collar crimes by nature are such that the injury or the damage caused as a consequence of them is so widely diffused in the large body of citizens that their enormity as regards personage victim is almost trifling.
Hartung defines a white-collar offense as a violation of law regulating business, which is committed for a firm by the firm or its agents in the conduct of its business.”
Types of White Collar Crime In India
· Bank Fraud: To engage in an act or pattern of activity where the purpose is to defraud a bank of funds.
· Blackmail: A demand for money or other consideration under threat to do bodily harm, to injure property, to accuse of a crime, or to expose secrets.
· Bribery: When money, goods, services, information or anything else of value is offered with intent to influence the actions, opinions, or decisions of the taker. You may be charged with bribery whether you offer the bribe or accept it.
· Cellular Phone Fraud: The unauthorized use, tampering, or manipulation of a cellular phone or service. This can be accomplished by either use of a stolen phone,or where an actor signs up for service under false identification or where the actor clones a valid electronic serial number (ESN) by using an ESN reader and reprograms another cellular phone with a valid ESN number.
· Computer fraud: Where computer hackers steal information sources contained on computers such as: bank information, credit cards, and proprietary information.
· Counterfeiting: Occurs when someone copies or imitates an item without having been authorized to do so and passes the copy off for the genuine or original item. Counterfeiting is most often associated with money however can also be associated with designer clothing, handbags and watches.
· Credit Card Fraud: The unauthorized use of a credit card to obtain goods of value.
· Currency Schemes: The practice of speculating on the future value of currencies.
· Educational Institutions: Yet another field where collar criminals operate with impunity are the privately run educational institutional in this country. The governing bodies of those institutions manage to secure large sums by way of government grants of financial aid by submitting fictitious and fake details about their institutions. The teachers and other staff working in these institutions receive a meager salary far less than what they actually sign for, thus allowing a big margin for the management to grab huge amount in this illegal manner.
· Embezz1ement: When a person who has been entrusted with money or property appropriates it for his or her own use and benefit.
· Environmental Schemes: The overbilling and fraudulent practices exercised by corporations which purport to clean up the environment.
· Extortion: Occurs when one person illegally obtains property from another by actual or threatened force, fear, or violence, or under cover of official right.
· Engineering :In the engineering profession underhand dealing with contractors and suppliers, passing of sub-standard works and materials and maintenance of bogus records of work-charged labour are some of the common examples of white collar crime. Scandals of this kind are reported in newspapers and magazines almost every day in our country.
· Fake Employment Placement Rackets: A number of cheating cases are reported in various parts of the country by the so called manpower consultancies and employment placement agencies which deceive the youth with false promises of providing them white collar jobs on payment of huge amount ranging from 50 thousands