Pubdate: Wed, 29 Aug 2001
Source: Sun News (SC)
Copyright: 2001 Sun Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://web.thesunnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/987
Author: The Associated Press

WHITE-COLLAR CRIME ON THE RISE IN S.C.

ANDERSON   White-collar crime is increasing in South Carolina and police 
say greed and drug addictions are to blame.

Authorities say the four South Carolinians who are among the people accused 
of defrauding McDonald's restaurants of $13 million in contest winnings 
illustrate that.

"People just accept it as a part of life," Anderson Police Sgt. Greg 
Hawkins said. "And businesses just accept it as the cost of running a 
business."

Hawkins has investigated white-collar crime since 1996 and says his 
workload has jumped from 250 cases that year to 488 cases last year. The 
cases include credit card fraud and breach of trust, where an employee is 
caught stealing from the company, he said. Simple forgeries account for 
about 70 percent of his cases, Hawkins said.

Embezzlement arrests rose statewide from 31 cases in 1993 to 260 in 1999, 
State Law Enforcement Division records show.

What's on the rise now is Internet fraud, said Will Pelfrey, a criminal 
justice professor at the University of South Carolina. "In the past, 
white-collar crime was embezzlement schemes, frauds and things that 
affected a specific person," Pelfrey said. "Now companies are likely the 
direct victim."

Greed, opportunity and drugs are what often propel people, often first-time 
offenders, to commit white-collar crimes, Hawkins said. "You take a cashier 
that is stealing 50 or 100 bucks, it's all about opportunity," he said. "If 
there's a pattern of fraud, it almost always involves drugs. But the 
McDonald's deal was greed. They are trying to get rich off someone else."

Legal experts say, in general, perpetrators of white-collar crime face 
lighter sentences than other criminals. The reasons range from the fact 
they can afford better attorneys to a public perception of white-collar 
criminals as solid citizens who just happened to "bend the rules."
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