Embezzlement is a white-collar financial crime covering a wide variety of specific illegal activities. Per The Legal Information Institute, embezzlement occurs when someone entrusted with the care of someone else’s personal property, be it in Missouri or any other state, fraudulently takes it for, or converts it to, his or own use or the use of someone else who is not legally entitled to have it.

Employee embezzlement is a common form of embezzlement. All the government must prove in order to convict the alleged embezzler is the illegal taking and that (s)he had actual possession of the goods or funds (s)he illegally took or had substantial control over them due to his or her job description and/or the practices within the company.

Wire transfer embezzlement

When an employee embezzles by means of a wire transfer, (s)he falsifies, alters or manipulates company accounts or the transfer instructions that come in electronically or by fax. If (s)he is an information technology or data processing employee, (s)he usually does this in conjunction with computer embezzlement. It is easy for such an employee to devise ways to skim money off customer transactions and transfer it to one or more different accounts for his or own benefit.

Credit embezzlement

In this type of embezzlement, an employee misuses credit card numbers, such as those attached to the company’s inactive or dormant accounts. Many unethical employees get unauthorized cash advances this way. Sometimes they create “ghost” employees so as to perpetrate payroll fraud. This money then is often transferred to “ghost” people or entities electronically or by means of stolen or forged checks.

Unfortunately, for a determined employee embezzler, only his or her imagination limits the ways in which (s)he can convert, steal or misappropriate the company’s property and funds for his or her own use and benefit.