Bill would help prosecute organized 'white collar' crime

As reported by the Legislative Gazette:

Sen. Jose Peralta, a member of the Senate Committee on Crime Victims, Crime and Correction, has high hopes for his bill which he calls the "21st Century Gang Crime" bill in this upcoming session.

According to the FBI's National Gang Intelligence Center's 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment report, gangs have increasingly become involved in white collar crimes including identity theft, credit card, bank and mortgage fraud and counterfeiting. These crimes are not listed under New York's Enterprise Corruption Statute, which is used to prosecute gangs.

"Despite the increasing prominence of these crimes, the law used in New York to prosecute gangs and organized crime organizations does not include a wide variety of cyber and identity crimes," said Peralta, D-Jackson Heights. "That's not surprising considering that when the Enterprise Corruption Statute was passed in 1986, pagers were the cutting edge personal technology of the day and the identity theft law did not even exist."

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