Are You a White Collar Criminal?

Do you have a controlling personality? Are you hard charging and overly aggressive? Charismatic and charming? Motivated by greed and/or revenge? Do you feel intellectually superior to most people? Congratulations! You meet the profile of a white collar criminal as compiled by the same FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit that is used to track serial killers!

In cinematic terms, substitute Gordon Gekko, the insider trader in "Wall Street," for Hannibal Lecter, the cannibalistic serial killer in The Silence of the Lambs, and you get an idea of what the FBI is trying to do.

"This originally started out as an attempt to find a way to prevent and detect Ponzi schemes," said Peter Grupe, the FBI's assistant special agent in New York in charge of white collar investigations. "But it developed into something broader."

So now the FBI is profiling master schemers like Bernie Madoff, Jeff Skilling, Allen Stanford, and Michael Milken to find the common threads between them personality-wise. They're also studying whether or not corporate culture can have an influence on employees and push them to "the dark side".

I think it's interesting, but I doubt it will yield much. Let's face it: I meet all their criteria, as I'm sure most of you do, and I'm no criminal mastermind. I think the same could be said for 95% of Wall Street. We're all (okay, almost all) a bunch of Type-A pricks, so this seems akin to finding a needle in a haystack. Be that as it may, they're pretty successful at rooting out serial killers if Criminal Minds is to be believed, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

It rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets RMBS again...

10 Comments
 

But isn't that a very important point... that corporate crime guys arent really evil or criminal masterminds, but every A-type is capable of becoming one if you really take it slowly and step by step... give it enough time and you will find some justifying decapitating people with leg to arm length ratio under 1.2. If its corporate crime which is often victimless or un-fatal, it is that much easier to get involved.

 
Best Response

I hate this. I know the FBI behavioral unit or whatever catches serial killers every now and then but do they ever really tell us anything we don't know? I mean, 'the serial killer is probably a middle aged white male, a little bit antisocial with few friends and might have had a difficult upbringing'. What the fuck? I could do that shit, watch. "The crack dealer is probably an African American Male, mid 20's to mid 40s, might have had a difficult upbringing and probably relies on intimidation to get things accomplished." Boom! Give me a job at Quantico.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses - Henry Ford
 
happypantsmcgeeI hate this. I know the FBI behavioral unit or whatever catches serial killers every now and then but do they ever really tell us anything we don't know? I mean, 'the serial killer is probably a middle aged white male, a little bit antisocial with few friends and might have had a difficult upbringing'. What the fuck? I could do that shit, watch. "The crack dealer is probably an African American Male, mid 20's to mid 40s, might have had a difficult upbringing and probably relies on intimidation to get things accomplished." Boom! Give me a job at Quantico.

My sources tell me that you just moved up to #1 on the FBI watchlist after that comment.

This story reminds me of that line from Casino, when Joe Pesci & De Niro are talking about the black book:

"That black book's a joke. It's only got two names in it for the whole country. And one of them's still Al Capone. "

 

"Do you have a controlling personality? Are you hard charging and overly aggressive? Charismatic and charming? Motivated by greed and/or revenge? Do you feel intellectually superior to most people?"

That really narrows it down. It's a wonder why the FBI reputation has been tarnished over the past 30 years.

 
brooksbrotha"Do you have a controlling personality? Are you hard charging and overly aggressive? Charismatic and charming? Motivated by greed and/or revenge? Do you feel intellectually superior to most people?"

That really narrows it down. It's a wonder why the FBI reputation has been tarnished over the past 30 years.

I blame short people
If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses - Henry Ford
 
Edmundo BravermanDo you have a controlling personality? Are you hard charging and overly aggressive? Charismatic and charming? Motivated by greed and/or revenge? Do you feel intellectually superior to most people?
That's me! But what's wrong with being a rockstar?
 

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