White-collar crimes can include any number of criminal activities. The most common types of white-collar crimes, however, involve fraud. The reason is that both fraud and white-collar crimes often use deceit to obtain financial gain. While some view white-collar crimes as less serious than other criminal activities, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Southern California prosecutes individual’s accused of white-collar crime aggressively.
It was recently announced that former defensive lineman Byron Fisch was one of four individuals arrested for insurance fraud in Southern California. A news release issued by the United States Attorney’s Office in San Diego stated that Fisch and his three associates ran an insurance fraud scheme that caused insurance companies to release more than $50 million in life insurance policies to numerous unqualified applicants.
According to officials, the suspects obtained more than $1.5 million submitting fraudulent applications for life insurance, which they intended to sell on the secondary market to investors for even larger profits. To obtain the policies Fish and the others allegedly falsified the applicants’ net worth, income and the source of payments. Federal prosecutors have charged the parties with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.
Insurance fraud is committed when someone uses deceptive means to obtain an insurance payment. Like most fraud, penalties depend on a wide variety of factors including the criminal history of the accused and the amount of money stolen. Under the U.S. Criminal Code, however, mail and wire fraud are punishable by a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, $250,000 in fines and three years supervised release per count.
Source: Fox News, “Former NFL lineman charged in $50M insurance fraud scheme in California,” August 02, 2013