“Fraud is on the rise here in Houston,” says Sergeant Darren Schlosser of the Houston Police Department’s Auto Theft Division Vehicle Fraud Unit. And some such fraud cases have involved persons using fake identities to purchase expensive vehicles at Houston-area auto dealerships.
According to KPRC Channel 2 at Click2Houston.com, a woman was recently arrested on outstanding warrants after police said she purchased 2 vehicles worth $100,000 while using a stolen identity in Houston.
Schlosser said many of the “fraudsters” who Houston police deal with are “serial fraudsters.” He said the woman who fraudulently bought vehicles in Houston last August did “quite a bit of fraud” in a brief amount of time.
The policeman said fraudulent purchases of vehicles can lead to law-abiding citizens paying higher prices for vehicles and auto liability insurance. “The more fraud that’s committed, the higher the prices go,” he said.
U.S. fraud cases rise 19 percent
According to Experian, a consumer credit reporting company with global operations, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission received almost 6,000,000 reports of fraud from identity theft in 2021—an increase of 19 percent from 2020.
But the financial losses from such fraud had a much higher increase. In 2021, such losses surpassed $6.1 billion—an increase of more than 77 percent compared to 2020.
In its recent 2022 Global Identity and Fraud Report, Experian reported that almost half of all business respondents this year have reported fraud as a high concern, and 90 percent reported that fraud was a mid-to-high concern. Also, 70 percent of businesses say their worries about fraud have increased in the past 12 months.
From child custody to employment to housing, find out the ways a criminal record can impact your life and how to protect your rights.
Much fraud involves “cybercrimes”
Much of the crimes of fraud do not involve the kind of in-person identity theft that’s been used in such things as the fraudulent purchases of vehicles in Houston, but rather “cybercrimes,” or frauds perpetrated via the internet and not in person.
Such crimes can include the following:
- Benefits and unemployment fraud is a crime in which false information is used to gain unemployment or other benefits.
- “Phishing” is a crime that involves fraudulently sending emails that claim to be from reputable companies as a way to encourage people to reveal their personal information, such as credit card numbers and passwords, which can then be used for theft.
Other frauds can involve more advanced scams such as:
- Synthetic identity fraud. With these crimes, synthetic identities are created by using a combination of potentially valid information, such as a real person’s Social Security number and false personally identifiable information, such as fake addresses, phone numbers and even social media accounts. These false or “synthetic” identities are then used to claim money fraudulently by signing up for loans, bank accounts or other financial services.
- Deepfake fraud. For this crime, scammers use phony computer-generated video or audio representations of fictional humans to create fake identities, which are then used to do fraudulent things such as open—and withdraw from—bank accounts for the non-existent persons. In fact, Experian reports that one of the businesses hardest hit by fraudulent activities is retail banking.
Deepfake techniques, in themselves, are not necessarily a crime of fraud, but they can be used as such. While few states have deepfake-specific laws, Texas does have a law banning deepfakes as a means of influencing elections.
Frauds are white-collar crimes
Crimes of fraud are what are known as white-collar crimes, which means they are non-violent in nature and involve such things as:
- Theft
- Bribery
- Money laundering
- Embezzlement
- Mail fraud
- Bank fraud
- Tax fraud
- Health care fraud
- Identity theft
- Cybercrimes (as mentioned above)
Though such crimes do not involve violence, they can bring harsh and severe punishments. Such punishments can come on both the state and federal levels, depending on the nature and circumstances of the fraud.
Learn about the potential consequences of fraud and other white-collar crimes and what defenses an attorney can use to protect your rights.
As the Neal Davis Law Firm recently reported, even famed businesspeople and celebrities have been charged, convicted and sentenced to prison for white-collar crimes of fraud.
Recently, health technology CEO Elizabeth Holmes of failed biotechnology startup Theranos was sentenced to 11 years and 3 months in prison for defrauding investors.
Shortly after that sentence was handed down, her business partner and COO at the company, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, was sentenced on December 7, 2022, to almost 13 years in prison after being convicted of all 12 charges he faced, including federal wire fraud.
Both had faced possible prison sentences of up to 20 years.
Two Ohio sport fishermen were sentenced to 10 days in jail and 6 months probation for trying to rig a fishing tournament by weighing down the fish they’d caught.
Get an experienced fraud defense lawyer
If you or a loved one faces a claim, accusation or charge of fraud or some other white-collar crime, you must get an experienced fraud defense lawyer or white-collar crime defense attorney to handle your case.
The Neal Davis Law Firm has been widely and consistently recognized and honored for its work defending the legal rights of Americans who face criminal charges for fraud. In fact, Neal Davis has been chosen as being in the top 5 percent of American defense attorneys for white-collar crime each year since 2015, according to peer reviews compiled by Best Lawyers in America.
Persons living in Houston, The Woodlands, Conroe, Sugar Land or elsewhere in Harris County, Fort Bend County or Montgomery County can reach out to the Neal Davis Law Firm for help with criminal defense for many types of crimes, including white-collar crimes of fraud.
