Common Theft Crimes

(The content below was transcribed from an interview done with Acacia Law. We think you'll find it much easier
and more enjoyable to read this way.)

Interviewer: Wow. There's a bunch more and there's a lot that change their minds. I mean I thought of embezzlement gets to be a certain form of theft, and then the car crimes, everyone thinks of grand theft auto sure is like some part of that and what other buzz words are there? You mentioned extortion to me. What other buzzwords are there under theft without really going into details, which we will do later but. What's like a full list of buzz words that.

Acacia Law: Common ones that I run into that I have to deal with are.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Acacia Law: The ones I mentioned earlier, theft of identification of another. Sub-categories under there include credit card theft, credit card fraud, another thing that is utilized is the creation of credit cards, fake credit cards. There is also the creation of bills, dollar bills, and trying to pass those off. You might notice that people that take a $20 bill or more at a store, often look at the bill under a light. There is a specific reason for that, certain patterns that show up.

Interviewer: Right.

Acacia Law: Other forms include again anything of value. Whether it comes from somebody's home, whether it comes from school. Anytime somebody takes something of value, it's a theft. If they have no right to the item. Even one kid going over to take another kid's bicycle is a serious crime. 

Interviewer: Okay.

Acacia Law: Most of the crimes that I deal with have to do with what I call 'consumer theft'. I do handle and have dealt with many, many embezzlement cases wherein there is an employee involved in some thought of theft from their own company. It may not be an embezzlement of money. It may be anything from utilizing their credit card, which they have authorization to for their own purposes, to essentially a cashier who has to make her books even at the end of the day might keep the extra pennies or so each time they make a transaction, which adds up, to the person who takes something from someone else's house, even if it's a friend. Which I've had happen and people flip out and call the police. So, vehicles, rental car companies is another one that's very common. People keep a rental car for longer than they are supposed to, that's a form of theft.

Interviewer: Really?

Acacia Law: They have their own system. Oh absolutely. They have their own system, just like the department stores to track the vehicles and do have them pursued as grand theft. Basically, what's called theft of means of transportation in this State. Those are the most common ones that I run into. A lot of them have to do, again, because of the Internet because of the World Wide Web, and the sophistication of the financial transactions over the phone, there are a slew of computer crimes that I deal with. They are very forensic in nature, but luckily I've been doing them for so long that I am very familiar with the system and how they get around it.

Interviewer: Okay.

Acacia Law: In terms of providing substantial defense to individuals. Those are the major categories. Things involving credit cards, computer crimes, shoplifting, burglaries, vehicles, even rental car companies. Utilizing a vehicle, extended past the time that the vehicle is supposed to be back in their possession. And once again, one of those situations where the individual did not intend to permanently deprive them of it, but it nonetheless has fallen into the category now of a felony theft. 

Interviewer: Incidentally, how long past your normal return date would the car company say “All right, well, this guy's not returning the car, we'd better press charges.” Would it be weeks, days?

Acacia Law: I've had it done within a period of 48 hours. I've had the police tracking people, tracking them down. That quickly. I've had them wait a week. It depends. Part of it has to do with circumstances. I think that in some circumstances where the person has rented a car for say, two weeks and they  may be on vacation and it's a day or two over late, they may wait. If it's three days over late they're going to hit the alarm button. If it's a car that's only been rented for a day or two, and isn't back in say 24 hours or so, and they have no way of reaching the individual and no contact, it can happen a lot faster.

Interviewer: Hmm.

Acacia Law: Since all their cars universally have GPS trackers on them, it's very easy to find them. A lot of people don't realize it, but there's not a rental car that you have out there that's not tracked. They'll find you.  Or at the very least they'll find the car. 

Interviewer: Right.

Acacia Law: They, again, due to the technology, their means of preparing that for tracking and the ability to disable that are just about impossible now. If you do deactivate it, it's going to send up a red flag and somebody's going to be at your last known location very, very quickly.