That's absolutely fucked. Literally just piling on crimes with the intent of ruining someone's life.
Discussing federal prosecutions, specifically, they talk about something known in slang as “the head-shot” for federal investigators and prosecutors: finding that someone took a loan from an associate, then used that money to secure a bank loan (a mortgage, say) while misrepresenting the loaned money as their own, then later paid the money back (making it clear, in the paper trail, that it was in fact a loan).
It’s very easy to understand, easy to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, it’s fraud, and it’s a great entry to comb through the books looking for more crimes.
“Something every kid does with their parents to buy their first home”, one Baltimore cop observes.
The parts of the show I have some real-world understanding of are remarkably observant and accurate. I’m inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt for parts I’m less familiar with.
My point was simply that financial crimes, including some really common ones that often go un-prosecuted until suddenly it matters, are often components of federal cases. Piling on stuff like that, or using them for early charges to secure warrants for further investigation or to gain leverage, is fairly normal. I chose a high-quality pop culture reference to illustrate that because… that’s an effective way to communicate.
When it’s passed off as a gift.
> What percent of kids do you estimate receive such fraudulent loans from their parents?
I dunno, but it’s pretty common. Maybe unknown in SES levels either too low (no money to loan) or too high (no fraud, because it’s actually a gift) but it’s common.
I’m entirely baffled at the pushback on this, incidentally. Do folks just really not want this to be true, for some reason?
[edit] to clarify what may be a point of confusion:
Rich parents are often in a position to comfortably gift their kid(s) tens of thousands of dollars for their first down payment.
Non-rich parents are more often in a position to somewhat-uncomfortably “gift” that money. It’s a gift on paper, but it’s actually a loan and they need the money back eventually (maybe for the next-oldest kid to borrow for the same purpose, lol). That’s when it’s fraud.
“Here are bank records showing the defendant received $5,000 dollars. Here are further records that show payments back to the person who sent the original $5,000. They occur over a span of eleven months. Eight transactions are for $500, one is for $450, and a later one is for $550, totaling $5,000. Only one month in this otherwise contiguous span—December—is skipped, with no payment occurring. Mr. [defendant], was this $5,000 in fact a loan?”
You’d have reasonable doubt?