White Collar Crime In Atlanta – Why They Steal

During my 30 years of Loss Prevention Investigations into what some call white collar crime also known as employee theft and internal theft I have come across some pretty strange reasons given to me by the thieves I have caught here in the Atlanta Area an else where.

In a number of case the thief stated that the reason that they stole from the company was that they were not given time off for job interviews at other companies. Wow! This is weird on so many levels. First I had a serious problem connected the two. How did they get from not getting time off to stealing thousands of dollars in cash and merchandise? I guess that it’s because the company is just one of those “evil employers” that we hear about. Of course, the bad guy kind of forgot to mention that the employer was the one to hire them in the first place, train them and pay them faithfully.

Another employee theft confession that I always get a chuckle (or migraine) out of is the “I needed the money for drugs” (not the kind you get from your Pharmacy). OK, let’s look at it from their point of view:

“I have a illegal (insert drug du jour here) habit that I have to feed every day. I need money. Robbing a bank seems like a lot of effort. Plus you have all those exploding dye packs and gunfire associated with bank robbery. I know! I will just steal it from my work. Can’t get shot doing that.”

Or another top ten hit is the “I didn’t receive my raise on time” excuse. So they decide to punish their employer by committing employee theft. In the follow-up on the cases I remember with this excuse I recall that most of them were not even going to get a raise because of poor performance. Maybe if they put more effort into their job? What a concept, work hard, get paid and go home, not jail.

And yes the vast majority of these people went to jail. Maybe white collar crime doesn’t really pay.

For more information on white collar crime contact us or call 1.770.426.0547

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