When a person is facing federal fraud charges against the government, they should expect to see intense and detailed investigations from local and federal law enforcement officials. Fraud against the government is not taken lightly and a person can expect very comprehensive investigations, which is why it is incredibly valuable to have an experienced Virginia federal government fraud lawyer helping guide them through the process.
Almost every government agency has its own investigative branch and, therefore, the answer to that question depends entirely on which agency is affected by the alleged fraud. In every case, you might have some interaction with the FBI, the nation’s primary federal criminal investigation division, but each of the agencies against whom a fraud might be committed does maintain their own investigative agency.
The government is very sensitive to people abusing the processes that are put in place to assist citizens. In cases where the systems are allegedly abused, government agencies want to take a strong stand to preserve the integrity of that existing system to enable others to fully benefit without the program itself losing money due to fraud. This is why government officials will invest a lot of time and effort into prosecuting theses cases.
In response to the government’s enthusiastic investigations, it is valuable that a person consult a federal government fraud lawyer in Virginia they believe will be their staunch and passionate advocate throughout the process.
Because these crimes are committed on paper, there is usually quite a bit of paper that’s involved these types of cases.
Fraud cases are almost always based on documentary evidence. The evidence for these cases is therefore going to almost exclusively be documentary in nature. How it impacts the case depends on the nature and number of documents that would be provided in discovery, but the government is very thorough in their investigations. As a result, these cases often generate thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of pages of documents.
It impacts the case because it requires a Virginia federal government fraud attorney that has a team of people who are dedicated to the case who can go through every document to make sure that all I’s are dotted and all T’s are crossed.
As a general rule, fraud cases are almost entirely based on money and documents. Government officials are going to be looking at bank records and they’re going to be looking at any documents that support or debunk any claims that are made by a possible defendant in a case. They will be subpoenaing bank records. They will be accessing every bit of information that you have relied upon to stake a claim for government assistance. They will attempt to use that information to establish the fraudulent nature of any initial claims that might have been made.
If the government has any inkling whatsoever that a computer or a file associated with that computer might have some information that they need to prosecute a case, they will always seize those computers and put them through a forensic evaluation to get every single bit of information off of that hard drive. They will want to know everything that was on that computer.