The most recent developments that have generated widespread concern for white-collar crime in the United States

by | Jun 13, 2025 | Essays

 

Discuss the most recent developments that have generated widespread concern for white-collar crime in the United States?

 

 

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Dante Alighieri played a critical role in the literature world through his poem Divine Comedy that was written in the 14th century. The poem contains Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The Inferno is a description of the nine circles of torment that are found on the earth. It depicts the realms of the people that have gone against the spiritual values and who, instead, have chosen bestial appetite, violence, or fraud and malice. The nine circles of hell are limbo, lust, gluttony, greed and wrath. Others are heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery. The purpose of this paper is to examine the Dante’s Inferno in the perspective of its portrayal of God’s image and the justification of hell. 

In this epic poem, God is portrayed as a super being guilty of multiple weaknesses including being egotistic, unjust, and hypocritical. Dante, in this poem, depicts God as being more human than divine by challenging God’s omnipotence. Additionally, the manner in which Dante describes Hell is in full contradiction to the morals of God as written in the Bible. When god arranges Hell to flatter Himself, He commits egotism, a sin that is common among human beings (Cheney, 2016). The weakness is depicted in Limbo and on the Gate of Hell where, for instance, God sends those who do not worship Him to Hell. This implies that failure to worship Him is a sin.


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God is also depicted as lacking justice in His actions thus removing the godly image. The injustice is portrayed by the manner in which the sodomites and opportunists are treated. The opportunists are subjected to banner chasing in their lives after death followed by being stung by insects and maggots. They are known to having done neither good nor bad during their lifetimes and, therefore, justice could have demanded that they be granted a neutral punishment having lived a neutral life. The sodomites are also punished unfairly by God when Brunetto Lattini is condemned to hell despite being a good leader (Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). While he commited sodomy, God chooses to ignore all the other good deeds that Brunetto did.

Finally, God is also portrayed as being hypocritical in His actions, a sin that further diminishes His godliness and makes Him more human. A case in point is when God condemns the sin of egotism and goes ahead to commit it repeatedly. Proverbs 29:23 states that “arrogance will bring your downfall, but if you are humble, you will be respected.” When Slattery condemns Dante’s human state as being weak, doubtful, and limited, he is proving God’s hypocrisy because He is also human (Verdicchio, 2015). The actions of God in Hell as portrayed by Dante are inconsistent with the Biblical literature. Both Dante and God are prone to making mistakes, something common among human beings thus making God more human.

To wrap it up, Dante portrays God is more human since He commits the same sins that humans commit: egotism, hypocrisy, and injustice. Hell is justified as being a destination for victims of the mistakes committed by God. The Hell is presented as being a totally different place as compared to what is written about it in the Bible. As a result, reading through the text gives an image of God who is prone to the very mistakes common to humans thus ripping Him off His lofty status of divine and, instead, making Him a mere human. Whether or not Dante did it intentionally is subject to debate but one thing is clear in the poem: the misconstrued notion of God is revealed to future generations.

 

References

Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). Dante’s inferno: Seven deadly sins in scientific publishing and how to avoid them. Addiction Science: A Guide for the Perplexed, 267.

Cheney, L. D. G. (2016). Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno: A Comparative Study of Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Stradano, and Federico Zuccaro. Cultural and Religious Studies, 4(8), 487.

Verdicchio, M. (2015). Irony and Desire in Dante’s” Inferno” 27. Italica, 285-297.

In the United States, several recent developments have generated widespread concern regarding white-collar crime. These concerns stem from a combination of high-profile cases, the evolving nature of criminal methodologies driven by technology, and shifts in prosecutorial and regulatory priorities.

1. High-Profile Cases and Their Ripple Effects

Recent years have seen a series of significant white-collar crime cases that have captured public attention and underscored the scale of financial misconduct:

  • Cryptocurrency Fraud and Money Laundering: The collapse of FTX and the conviction of its CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, for one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history (misappropriating billions in customer deposits for personal use) brought the vulnerabilities of the crypto industry into sharp focus. Similarly, cases like the sentencing of an attorney for laundering proceeds from the OneCoin crypto fraud and the operator of Bitcoin Fog for laundering millions underscore the increasing use of cryptocurrencies in illicit financial activities. These cases highlight the challenges of regulating and policing a rapidly evolving digital asset landscape.
  • Massive Public and Corporate Embezzlement/Fraud Schemes: Cases involving staggering sums, such as the Jacksonville Jaguars employee embezzling $22 million, a former Army civilian stealing over $100 million in grant funds, and former bank executives being sentenced for embezzlement and fraud tied to bank collapse, demonstrate that traditional forms of white-collar crime continue to cause immense financial damage to organizations and the public.

In the United States, several recent developments have generated widespread concern regarding white-collar crime. These concerns stem from a combination of high-profile cases, the evolving nature of criminal methodologies driven by technology, and shifts in prosecutorial and regulatory priorities.

1. High-Profile Cases and Their Ripple Effects

Recent years have seen a series of significant white-collar crime cases that have captured public attention and underscored the scale of financial misconduct:

  • Cryptocurrency Fraud and Money Laundering: The collapse of FTX and the conviction of its CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, for one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history (misappropriating billions in customer deposits for personal use) brought the vulnerabilities of the crypto industry into sharp focus. Similarly, cases like the sentencing of an attorney for laundering proceeds from the OneCoin crypto fraud and the operator of Bitcoin Fog for laundering millions underscore the increasing use of cryptocurrencies in illicit financial activities. These cases highlight the challenges of regulating and policing a rapidly evolving digital asset landscape.
  • Massive Public and Corporate Embezzlement/Fraud Schemes: Cases involving staggering sums, such as the Jacksonville Jaguars employee embezzling $22 million, a former Army civilian stealing over $100 million in grant funds, and former bank executives being sentenced for embezzlement and fraud tied to bank collapse, demonstrate that traditional forms of white-collar crime continue to cause immense financial damage to organizations and the public.
  • Conservation Easement Fraud: The sentencing of promoters to decades in prison for a $1.3 billion fraudulent conservation easement scheme highlights the ongoing problem of sophisticated tax fraud that exploits complex legal structures.
  • Public Corruption: The high-profile federal bribery conviction of Senator Bob Menendez, involving gold bars and foreign influence, reinforces public concern about corruption at the highest levels of government and its potential to undermine public trust.
  • Healthcare Fraud: Ongoing prosecutions in healthcare fraud, often involving large-scale schemes, continue to be a significant area of concern due to their direct impact on public health resources and costs.

These cases, often involving individuals in positions of trust or high-net-worth schemes, contribute to a public perception that white-collar crime is pervasive and that its perpetrators can cause widespread harm before detection.

2. The Impact of Advanced Technology, Particularly AI

Technology has profoundly reshaped the landscape of white-collar crime, enabling new forms of illicit activity and making existing schemes more sophisticated and harder to detect. This has generated significant concern for several reasons:

  • Cryptocurrency as a Facilitator: The decentralized and pseudonymous nature of cryptocurrencies continues to be exploited for money laundering, ransomware payments, and illicit transactions on darknet marketplaces. The sheer volume and speed of crypto transactions make tracing illicit funds a massive challenge for law enforcement.
  • Enhanced Digital Fraud and Identity Theft: The widespread use of the internet and digital platforms has led to a surge in phishing, ransomware, and identity theft. Criminals leverage technology to create more convincing fake identities, documents, and communications, making it harder for individuals and organizations to discern legitimate interactions from fraudulent ones.
  • AI-Powered Sophistication: The rapid advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially generative AI, is a growing concern. AI can be used by white-collar criminals to:
    • Generate Realistic Deepfakes: Creating highly convincing fake voices, videos, and documents for social engineering attacks, such as CEO fraud or invoice fraud, where an AI-generated voice might mimic an executive’s to authorize fraudulent transfers.
    • Automate and Scale Attacks: AI can analyze vast datasets to identify vulnerabilities in systems, optimize hacking strategies, and automate the process of siphoning funds or manipulating financial transactions, increasing the speed and scale of attacks.
    • Create Complex Money Laundering Schemes: AI can generate fake invoices or financial documents to obscure the origin of illicit funds and integrate them into legitimate financial systems with unprecedented complexity.
    • Market Manipulation: AI can be used to create large numbers of fake reports or manipulate trading algorithms to influence markets.
    • Bypass Security Measures: AI can help identify weaknesses in security systems or create more sophisticated malware, making it harder for traditional cybersecurity measures to keep pace.

The “low labor, time, and cost” involved in AI-driven fraud makes it increasingly attractive to criminals, posing a significant challenge to detection and prevention.

3. Shifts in Regulatory and Prosecutorial Focus

Recent policy changes within the Department of Justice (DOJ) also contribute to the ongoing concern, particularly regarding their potential impact on deterrence and enforcement:

  • DOJ’s “Focus, Fairness, and Efficiency” Plan (May 2025): The DOJ has announced a new white-collar enforcement strategy that aims to streamline investigations and encourage self-reporting. While the intent is to promote efficiency and reward cooperation, some worry that a reduced duration of investigations and increased reliance on voluntary self-disclosure (which can lead to declination of prosecution) might be perceived as a softening of enforcement, particularly for large corporations.
  • Prioritization of “High-Impact” Areas: The DOJ is focusing its resources on specific “high-impact” areas, including healthcare fraud, trade and customs violations (e.g., tariff evasion), sanctions violations, market manipulation, investment fraud, money laundering, and crimes involving digital assets. While this targets areas of significant harm, it also implies a deprioritization of other types of white-collar crimes, which could create perceived loopholes for criminals in those less-focused areas.
  • Emphasis on Individual Accountability: There’s a renewed emphasis on prosecuting individuals, including executives and officers, for corporate misconduct. While this is seen as a positive step for accountability, it also means that in some cases, the corporation itself might face fewer penalties if individuals are prosecuted, which could be a point of concern for deterring systemic corporate misconduct.
  • Decline in Overall Prosecutions: Data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) indicates that federal prosecutions for white-collar crimes have generally been declining, with a significant drop compared to five years ago. This trend, if it continues, could suggest reduced enforcement capacity or a shift in priorities, potentially leading to less deterrence for white-collar offenders.

In conclusion, the widespread concern for white-collar crime in the United States is fueled by the sheer scale of financial losses in recent high-profile cases, the escalating sophistication of crimes driven by emerging technologies like AI, and the ongoing debate about the effectiveness and focus of regulatory and prosecutorial strategies in an increasingly complex financial landscape.

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