Herbalife, a nutritional supplements company, is the latest business to face charges by the U.S. officials on confirmed corporate crime. The Department of Justice confirmed that the company plotted to bribe Chinese administrators and modify their books to promote their business in China. Notably, the company had conducted their bribery practices for more than a decade. Ultimately, the company complied to pay fines of more than $123million to settle the bribery charges (Voytko, 2020). The charges indicate Herbalife's ability to commit a white-collar crime with no intention of harming the public but for their benefit. Besides, the crime involved great deceit as the company modified its books to attract clients in China. Herbalife ensured that their practices remained silent to avoid any legal charges. The company conspired with the Chinese government and state-owned communication entities to keep their practices silent. Besides, they made payments to obtain licenses and influence investigations and exposure of the company (Duffy, 2020). Such a practice is a true definition of corporate crime that involves cooperating with powerful individuals or agencies for external protection (Rothe & Kauzlarich, 2016). Corporate crimes also require a way of modifying documents to maintain authenticity. Similarly, Duffy (2020) revealed that Herbalife maintained false accounting documents such as records of improper payments to conceal the bribery practices. Ideally, Herbalife gained a range of total net sales from China mainly because of bribery. Prominent Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have recently posted a series of edited and misleading videos on Facebook and Twitter. The latest one includes a flawed video concerning Joe Biden posted through the Twitter account of House Minority Whip, Steve Scalise. Following successive complaints, inclusive of one from an individual confessing that he had words put in his mouth, Twitter went ahead to label the video as "manipulated video" (Hasen, 2020). The instance indicates how powerful organizations, including political parties, can commit white-collar crimes such as false advertisements for their benefits. President Trump and fellow Republicans used fake advertisements to gain new supporters and maintain their existing supporters' trust. The social media manipulation involved not only the Republicans but also other top government officials. Dan Scavino, White House social media director, posted another video that made it look like Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden was resting during a television interview. However, Twitter noted that it was an edited video and labeled it as "manipulated video" 18 hours after the tweet (O'Sullivan & Dale, 2020). Although it had no physical impact, like any other corporate crime, the manipulate video had attained almost 1.3million views by the time Twitter noted. Definitions by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (2016) affirms that the case is just one of the powerful crimes committed on social media that are always neglected by investigators due to the offenders' powerful nature. Louisville city officials agreed to pay $12million to Breaonna Taylor's family as a settlement for the unjust death lawsuit presented by the youthful woman's family. The family received more than double the settlements paid to other police brutality victims, such as Eric Garner from New York. The payment came six months following Mrs. Taylor's demise, who was a victim of a botched drug raid (Callimachi, 2020). The compensation is a recognition of a state crime given that Louisville City took the responsibility of the police brutality and agreed to pay charges. Ideally, the police officers involved in the shooting during the drug raid were acting in the city's capacity; hence, the officials had to take responsibility. The agreement seemed fair as the town officials accepted to implement the transformations to averting wrongful deaths by police officers. However, the decision did not allow the city to recognize wrongdoing. Mayor Greg Fischer stated that his administration would be quick in implementing the needed reforms to prevent further police brutality (Callimachi, 2020). Such steps reveal a state crime where the city is ready to implement changes to prevent further crimes. On the other hand, the agreement depicts a powerful individual who committed the crime as no legal charges were imposed on the offenders (Rothe & Kauzlarich, 2016). It did not indicate whether the police involved in the wrongful death would face criminal charges. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently addressed the brutal death of Yakub Abu al-Qian, who was killed by the police. Netanyahu apologized to the Bedouin family for their relative's brutal death, whose vehicle accidentally run over a police officer. Besides, the man was murdered by police tear gas and ultimately marked as an arsonist (Kershner, 2020). Moreover, Netanyahu's presentation revealed several white-collar crimes involved in the case. FBI (2016) recognized deceit as a major form of white-collar crimes. Similarly, the police wrongfully labeled Yakub as a terrorist to justify the action they took against him. Besides, it took four years before the government responded to such brutal murders. Netanyahu publicly apologized while at the same time outraging many current and former officials. The officials had previously accused the prime minister of exploiting Yakub's case as part of his campaign strategy. They claimed that Netanyahu used the case to divert attention from the charges against his corruption allegations. Despite the corruption accusations, which is a state crime, other reports indicated some crimes. News reports had asserted before the apology that the police and attorney office covered the brutal killing to protect the police's reputation and probity of criminal investigations against the Prime Minister (Kershner, 2020). Indeed, falsification was a significant part of the attempts to prevent such a state crime.
References
Callimachi, R. (2020, September 15). Breonna Taylor’s family to receive $12 million settlement from city of Louisville . The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/15/us/breonna-taylor-settlement-louisville.html
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Duffy, C. (2020, August 28). Herbalife to pay $123 million to settle China bribery charges . CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/28/business/herbalife-china-bribery-settlement/index.html
Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2016, May 3). White-collar crime . https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/white-collar-crime#:~:text=Reportedly%20coined%20in%201939%2C%20the,of%20physical%20force%20or%20violence
Hasen, R. (2020, September 1). “Republicans are flooding the internet with deceptive videos and big tech isn’t keeping up.” Election Law Blog | Rick Hasen’s blog. https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114651
Kershner, I. (2020, September 10). Netanyahu apology to Bedouins is taken as an affront . The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/10/world/middleeast/netanyahu-apology-bedouin.html
O’Sullivan, D., & Dale, D. (2020, September 1). Republicans are flooding the internet with deceptive videos and big tech isn’t keeping up . CNN. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/01/tech/trump-facebook-twitter-fact-check/index.html
Rothe, D. L., & Kauzlarich, D. (2016). Crimes of the powerful: An introduction (1st ed.). Routledge.
Voytko, L. (2020, August 30). Herbalife’s $123 million Chinese bribery settlement is latest legal trouble for MLM giant . Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/08/28/herbalifes-123-million-chinese-bribery-settlement-is-latest-legal-trouble-for-mlm-giant/#571ce31d4fcd
