Financial crime

Financial crime is when people do illegal things to take money or property from others. This can happen in many ways, like tricking someone with fake checks, using a stolen credit card, or lying to get a loan. Some people even steal identities or make fake money to commit these crimes.

These bad actions can be done by single people, big companies, or groups that work together to break the law. Anyone can be hurt by financial crime—individuals, businesses, governments, or whole countries.

Law enforcement sometimes calls big groups that work together on these crimes "criminal syndicates." It is important to know about financial crime so we can help keep ourselves and others safe.

Bribery

The U.S. created a law called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in 1977 to stop the act of giving unfair payments to foreign leaders. This law was very important for many years. Around 2010, other countries, like the United Kingdom with its Bribery Act 2010, started making their own stronger laws against such actions. In 2016, a group called the International Organization for Standardization made a global standard to help companies manage and prevent unfair payments. Lately, countries have been working together more to enforce these laws.

Money laundering

Main article: Money laundering

Money laundering is when people try to hide where their money came from when it was earned in illegal ways. They do this by moving the money through different accounts, using fake companies, or moving it between countries. The goal is to make it look like the money was earned legally.

Many countries work hard to catch and stop money laundering. It is a big problem because it helps fund other illegal activities. Experts estimate that a lot of illegal money is laundered every year around the world. Some people involved in serious crimes use secret ways to hide their activities, which makes it important for governments to work together to prevent this.

Fraud

In 2005, fraud in the financial industry was estimated to cost the UK £14 billion each year.

As digital transactions have grown, fraud has become more linked to keeping computers safe. Old methods of catching fraud no longer worked well, so new smarter tools are now used to spot it. With new technology, bad groups have gotten better at committing fraud, making it a big problem around the world. A leader from Interpol recently said that financial fraud is growing fast, hurting many people and businesses globally.

Law enforcement agencies

Some countries have special police groups that focus on stopping crimes related to money and taxes. These groups work to catch people who break laws about taxes, hide money, or use other people's information without permission.

Here are some of these special groups from different countries:

• Australia - Australian Taxation Office
• Canada - Department of Finance is the primary policy driver on AML/CTF. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have the primary Federal enforcement mandate.
• Denmark - National enhed for Særlig Kriminalitet (NSK)
• Mexico - Unidad de Inteligencia Financiera
• Netherlands - Fiscale Inlichtingen- en Opsporingsdienst
• Nigeria - Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
• Norway - Økokrim
• Sweden - Ekobrottsmyndigheten
• United Kingdom - His Majesty's Revenue & Customs
• United States of America - Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation