Embezzlement is a very serious form of white-collar crime. In most cases, it involves financial assets being taken from a business or corporation.
However, embezzlement is a bit different than other types of theft. Generally, theft involves the wrongful taking of assets that someone was never supposed to access. An example could be someone stealing the passwords to a corporation’s bank accounts or hacking into their financial system and taking their assets directly.
The difference with embezzlement is that the person who carries out the alleged crime was already granted access to those assets. The access itself is not illegal. Instead, they are being accused of misappropriation. They are using those assets in a fraudulent or unapproved manner.
Personal financial gain
For example, a corporation may have an entire team of financial officers and analysts who are allowed to access its bank accounts at any time. They must have access simply to be able to do their jobs correctly.
But it becomes embezzlement if one of those employees starts to redirect assets to a personal account. Say that they are told to purchase supplies for the business, but they doctor the books to artificially inflate the costs, claiming they have spent twice as much as was actually spent on the supplies. The other 50 percent of the money is redirected to their personal bank account.
If you have been accused of embezzlement or other white-collar crimes, it is very important to know exactly what those accusations mean when building your defense. It can help to work with a skilled legal defense attorney at this time.