Arrest-Proof Yourself (27 page)

counterfeiting of currency, automobile titles, luxury goods, music, movies, and software

immigrant smuggling

white slavery
¹⁰
and high-end prostitution

» political and ecoterrorism

» confidence rackets

» extortion and protection rackets

» illegal gambling

» government procurement fraud and bid rigging

» labor racketeering

» bribery of judges and elected officials

» vote fraud

These are enormous criminal enterprises. Thousands of criminals are involved, but comparatively few are arrested. Here’s why. All these crimes have one feature in common:
Cops driving around in cars can’t see them
. Sounds simple, and it is. No see ’em, no arrest ’em.

Think about this. When your local porn king is making unspeakable child pornography videos, one of the most heinous crimes in America, what do cops driving around see? A warehouse or office building with some cars parked out front—that’s all. Cops can’t see through walls (yet), so they drive on.

Take bank and mortgage fraud. It happens in offices. Cops don’t go there. Even if they drive by and happen to see a fraud artist, what do they see? A guy with a briefcase. That’s all. Drive on.

Furthermore, street cops are untrained to even recognize many of these crimes, even if they do see them being committed. Sound far-fetched? Imagine this. A guy is sitting at a table on his front porch committing insurance fraud. He’s preparing a phony claim that will net him hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is a major felony. If a cop drives by, what does he see? A guy filling out forms with a ballpoint pen. It doesn’t look suspicious. Drive on.

Here’s another example. A money launderer is sitting in one of those fancy coffee shops where you buy overpriced java and use the Internet. The bad guy is gathering up funds from multiple banks from porn purchases made over the Internet and paid by credit card. This is how kiddie porn is sold. He then transfers the money to overseas banks. All of this can be done with a laptop computer and an Internet account opened under a phony name and paid for with an untraceable cash card. Imagine that a cop walks quietly into the coffee shop and actually looks over the money launderer’s shoulder and witnesses illegal money transfers. All he sees is a guy typing numbers and letters on a computer screen. For all the cop knows, the guy is paying his light bill or ordering a movie ticket. No arrest. Back to the car. Drive on.

Middle-class crime is not small potatoes. The quantities of money are astounding. A middle-class crook perpetrating a single insurance fraud—for example, making a phony disability claim—can make hundreds of thousands of dollars, more than a bank robber could even dream about. For clueless people, the money from crime is hit or miss. Score something here; score something there. There are feast days and famine, but in the end most clueless types who try to make a living from crime end up living in crummy apartments. Sooner or later, they and, generally, their female relatives become impoverished by the criminal justice system, which sucks out their money to pay fines, court costs, attorney’s fees, bail bonds, and drug court and probation charges.

Middle-class crime is more like a conveyor belt. Enormous quantities of illegal goods and services move outward to the public, and a never-ending pile of money flows back to the crooks. Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Every day is a payday and the register never stops ringing.

The FBI is quite good at investigating middle-class crooks. The methods they use—consensual monitors (“wires”), wiretaps, stings, reverse cons, confidential informants, and undercover ops—are the only way to investigate, arrest, and successfully prosecute middle-class crooks. There are, however, two little problems.

1. FBI agents only investigate federal crimes.

2. There aren’t many FBI agents. In my city, for example, there are
thousands
of patrol cops riding around in cars and busting people like you. There are only
dozens
of FBI agents. These days, a huge proportion of bureau resources is dedicated to national security. This leaves middle-class crooks more latitude than ever to keep raking it in.

Yes, cops need to arrest many more middle-class people. They can’t do it now because their resources are grossly misdeployed. Police department detectives can use many of the same investigative techniques as the FBI, but police departments have nowhere near the numbers of detectives necessary to make a dent in middle-class crime. In any case, most detectives spend all their time, of necessity, investigating homicides, kidnappings, armed robberies, carjackings, and other violent crimes. Often
nobody
is going after middle-class crooks.

Another complication is that middle-class crimes often involve transactions across state lines and national borders and violations of both state and federal law. This means these crimes fall between the cracks of different jurisdictions. Are the cops or the FBI in charge? Maybe the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Office of the Bank Examiner; the Secret Service; the Drug Enforcement Agency; or the Border Patrol should take a hand. Often no one can decide who’s in charge. Another interagency task force gets formed, and another SNAFU (situation normal, all fouled up). Ho-hum in Bureaucrat Land.

Police departments are stuck in the last century in regard to their ability to hunt and arrest middle-class criminals. To catch them, police departments will have to become radically different than they are today. They will have to employ, directly or on contract, battalions of the following kinds of people, many of whom can be civilians rather than sworn officers. Many will have job specialties most cops can’t even spell:

fraud investigators

forensic accountants

banking investigators

insurance investigators

securities investigators

phone and communications specialists