WHITE-COLLAR CRIME ON THE RISE IN S.C.

ANDERSON White-collar crime is increasing in South Carolina and police
say greed and drug addictions are to blame.

Authorities say the four South Carolinians who are among the people accused
of defrauding McDonald's restaurants of $13 million in contest winnings
illustrate that.

"People just accept it as a part of life," Anderson Police Sgt. Greg
Hawkins said. "And businesses just accept it as the cost of running a
business."

Hawkins has investigated white-collar crime since 1996 and says his
workload has jumped from 250 cases that year to 488 cases last year. The
cases include credit card fraud and breach of trust, where an employee is
caught stealing from the company, he said. Simple forgeries account for
about 70 percent of his cases, Hawkins said.

Embezzlement arrests rose statewide from 31 cases in 1993 to 260 in 1999,
State Law Enforcement Division records show.

What's on the rise now is Internet fraud, said Will Pelfrey, a criminal
justice professor at the University of South Carolina. "In the past,
white-collar crime was embezzlement schemes, frauds and things that
affected a specific person," Pelfrey said. "Now companies are likely the
direct victim."

Greed, opportunity and drugs are what often propel people, often first-time
offenders, to commit white-collar crimes, Hawkins said. "You take a cashier
that is stealing 50 or 100 bucks, it's all about opportunity," he said. "If
there's a pattern of fraud, it almost always involves drugs. But the
McDonald's deal was greed. They are trying to get rich off someone else."

Legal experts say, in general, perpetrators of white-collar crime face
lighter sentences than other criminals. The reasons range from the fact
they can afford better attorneys to a public perception of white-collar
criminals as solid citizens who just happened to "bend the rules."