Undercover agents, wire taps and search warrants. For a criminal case it sounds like your typical organized crime investigation. You would expect the indictment to have charges for drug dealing, racketeering, murder or something similar.
But last week we heard that these were the techniques used to catch the 22 people indicted for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. An undercover FCPA sting?
The FBI and DOJ are now using blue collar investigation tools for white collar crimes. As Scott Greenfield points out, in prison all collars are striped.
These white collar defendants used email and left a nice paper trail for undercover feds to put together their indictments. One defendant even ran the issue past his compliance department, but ignored their advice. These defendants made it easy.
A smart drug dealer will wonder if the person on the other side of the deal is a cop. Now white collar criminals need to start having the same concerns. After all, briefcases are great for holding recording equipment.