“Lying, cheating, stealing. This is, simply put, white collar crime” (fbi.gov). This crime is not one to be overlooked. White collar crimes can destroy families, businesses and investors, individually or all at once. White collar crimes include wire fraud, institutional corruption, welfare fraud, and Ponzi schemes. Two white collar criminals, Marc Dreier and Bernie Madoff, go hand in hand and show the best examples of white collar crime. Marc Dreier, famous for impersonating a Toronto lawyer within his firm and stealing $380 million from hedge funds, ran a Ponzi scheme (Borrough). Bernie Madoff, “quietly ran the largest hedge fund in the world, a fund that spanned forty nations and managed tens of billions of dollars,” also ran the largest Ponzi scheme. White collar crimes have become progressively more complicated. With no money trail, tracking down these scammers can be difficult. It is important to know how criminals like Dreier and Madoff are investigated and who investigates them to understand how white collar crimes work and how they are caught is also very crucial to understanding white collar crimes. The Ponzi scheme is named after Charles Ponzi, who promised to invest in postal bonds, which a person could then redeem for profit; Ponzi would be able to double his investments in three months (Markopolos 50). Investors were made to believe that they would make huge profits. However, the plan failed and the investors paid millions of dollars to Charles Ponzi. History only repeats itself. Therefore, Ponzi schemes typically work the same way, but today they are even more complex. Only, the scheme is based on a promise... middle of paper... may never have been warned in advance, which is important in convicting a perpetrator. However, with RICO laws it has become easier to prosecute white collar criminals. It is important to have RICO laws, because very often there are corruption crimes (Bourgeois 1). Corruption is a major part of the financial business and cracking down on these criminals is another step towards saving another fraud victim. White collar crimes have been a big problem in recent years. Marc Dreier and Bernie Madoff have conducted extensive investigations since they were captured. Understanding how white collar crimes are conducted helps law enforcement and legislation crack down on catching and preventing these criminals. Without such laws and enforcement agencies, white-collar criminals would steal innocent people's money more quickly.