We note on our website at the established Hilder & Associates criminal defense firm in Houston what is almost a truism these days regarding financial crimes.
That is this: Such offenses “garner big headlines in the media.”
In fact, the realm of alleged misconduct in the financial sphere has always spelled big news in the United States, And law enforcers – especially federal entities tasked with criminal investigation – purposefully seek to ensure that matters like tax fraud and money laundering garner broad public attention.
Take the Internal Revenue Service, for example, which makes broad and overt efforts to spotlight the aggressive probes and high-conviction results linked with its Criminal Investigation division.
The CI unit has long been a special outfit of highly vetted special agents who focus solely upon uncovering financial wrongdoing and punishing it severely. The IRS annually releases a report on the CI’s actions and accomplishments.
The latest fiscal year’s report, issued just last week, lauds CI agents’ aggressiveness, targeted strategies and high conviction rates secured in financial crime matters. Reportedly, the CI unit garnered criminal conviction in 92% of the enforcement actions it commenced last year.
The IRS touts special agents’ ability to employ “cutting-edge technology combined with sophisticated investigative work” to uncover and spotlight at trial wrongdoing in matters ranging from tax-linked identity theft to public corruption and cybercrime. The CI unit reportedly relies heavily on data analysis and gathering strategies in its efforts. CI Chief Don Fort states that “data analytics is a powerful tool for identifying areas of tax nom-compliance.”
Federal law enforcers play hard and for keeps in their probes seeking to uncover and punish alleged financial wrongdoing. Individuals and business entities targeted in such matters might reasonably want to timely turn to a proven white collar criminal defense team if they have any questions or concerns regarding a financial crimes investigation.
