What Is Financial Crime And How To Legal Assistants Help Solve It?

Financial crimes, as you might expect, are crimes related to money that are generally non-violent and financially motivated. This separates them from crimes like theft and larceny which, while they involve money can be violent. 

If you are interested in joining our Legal Assistant School, financial crimes are an area of criminal justice that it pays to be aware of. So, in this article, we’ll be covering some examples of major financial crimes and how legal assistants can play a major role in helping to solve them.

What Are Some Examples of Financial Crimes?

It is possible to divide financial crime into two different, although closely related, types of criminal conduct.

First, there are those activities that dishonestly generate wealth for those engaged in the conduct in question. For example, the exploitation of insider information or the acquisition of another person’s property by deceit will invariably be done with the intention of securing a material benefit. Alternatively, a person may engage in deceit to secure material benefit for another.

Common examples of this kind of financial crime include:

Embezzlement

Embezzlement is the act of withholding assets for the purpose of conversion of such assets, by one or more persons to whom the assets were entrusted, either to be held or to be used for specific purposes.

Insider Trading

Insider trading is the trading of a public company’s stock or other securities, such as bonds or stock options, based on material, nonpublic information about the company. In various countries, some kinds of trading based on insider information is illegal. 

There are also financial crimes that do not involve the dishonest taking of a benefit, but that protect a benefit that has already been obtained or to facilitate the taking of such benefit. An example of such conduct is where someone attempts to launder criminal proceeds of another offense in order to place the proceeds beyond the reach of the law.

The most common example of this second kind of financial crime is:

Money Laundering 

Money laundering is the illegal process of concealing the origins of money obtained illegally by passing it through a complex sequence of banking transfers or commercial transactions. The overall scheme of this process returns the “clean” money to the launderer in an obscure and indirect way.

Why Are Legal Assistants Important in Helping Solve Financial Crime?

One of the major issues associated with the solving of financial crimes is their sheer complexity and the volume of accompanying paperwork that comes with financial crimes cases. Within any law firm, legal assistants play a vital role in helping to conduct legal research, reviewing documents, and organizing cases. 

These tasks form a vital part of correctly addressing and helping to solve financial crimes, making the role of the legal assistant a critical one when it comes to addressing this kind of criminal behavior.  

Choosing Your New Career Path

Gaining a qualification from our Criminal Justice School puts you in an excellent position to access a variety of employment opportunities as you look for one that suits your skills and interests. 

At Northwest Career College, our Criminal Justice instructors include licensed, practicing attorneys and degree instructors able to teach, not only the law but also to guide our students in the many ways a criminal justice graduate integrates into a Las Vegas legal profession.

As part of our Criminal Justice Program, you’ll visit courts, jails, meditation centers, and more to experience first-hand the law in action, which will make your criminal justice training applicable to the Las Vegas legal system. 

Northwest offers a flexible blended program with all criminal justice classes Las Vegas law classes taught on campus by an attorney and general education courses offered online. Our experienced instructors are on-campus to review and support your learning experience at all times. 

Call us at (702) 403-1592 to speak to one of our enrollment team about joining our Criminal Justice Program today!