Juitra Posted May 9, 2020 Share Posted May 9, 2020 (edited) Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation Division ** I know that debate has been had about the use of FBI etc, so if this falls into the category of simply not something the server management wants to explore I understand. For this reason though I have limited the amount of detail below to a simple overview. If the faction is deemed to have potential I will document a lot more. ** History On July 1, 1919, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Daniel C. Roper created the Intelligence Unit to investigate widespread allegations of tax fraud. To establish the Intelligence Unit, six United States Post Office Inspectors were transferred to the Bureau of Internal Revenue to become the first special agents in charge of the organization that would one day become Criminal Investigation. Among the first six, Elmer Lincoln Irey was designated as the Chief of the new unit. Hugh McQuillan, Arthur A. Nichols, Frank Frayser, Everett Partridge and Herbert E. Lucas were the other five that made up the new unit. On October 6, 1919, Irey brought in William H. Woolf from the Office of the Chief Postal Inspector in Washington as his Assistant Chief. They formed the nucleus that became the Intelligence Unit. The Intelligence Unit quickly became renowned for the financial investigative skill of its special agents. It attained national prominence in the 1930s for the conviction of public enemy number one, Al Capone, for income tax evasion, and its role in solving the Lindbergh kidnapping. From these promising beginnings the Intelligence Unit expanded over the intervening decades, investigating tax evasion by ordinary citizens, prominent businesspersons, government officials, and notorious criminals. Unofficially, the agents in the Intelligence Unit were known as "T-Men" due to their affiliation with the United States Department of the Treasury. In July 1978, the Intelligence Unit changed its name to Criminal Investigation (CI). Over the years CI's statutory jurisdiction expanded to include money laundering and currency violations in addition to its traditional role in investigating tax violations. However, Criminal Investigation's core mission remains unchanged. It continues to fulfill the important role of helping to ensure the integrity and fairness of the United States tax system. The “Untouchables”, made famous for their prosecution of Al Capone for Income Tax Evasion Today Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) is the federal law enforcement agency responsible for investigating potential criminal violations of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code and related financial crimes, such as money laundering, tax-related identity theft fraud that adversely affect tax administration. The IRS-CI is the only federal agency that can investigate potential criminal violations of the Internal Revenue Code in order to deter violations of tax law. Criminal Investigation is a division of the Internal Revenue Service, which in turn is a bureau within the United States Department of the Treasury. In Los Santos For years now Los Santos has been a hot bed for criminal organisations and individuals to undertake illegal activities. Whilst the LSPD within the city and the LSSD in the greater area are active in their fight against crime their investigative role is limited to the real time criminal activities of these groups. With the increasing sophistications of the criminals to generate wealth through illegal activity the State Government has asked for greater focus to be applied to the proceeds of these illegal activities and where possible for the IRS to provide additional support within the state using its traditional approaches of investigating the source of criminals wealth and to determine whether the source of the income was illegal or whether the income had been appropriately taxed. Faction Development The concept. Having been on the server for nearly a year I have observed the quite lavish lifestyles that criminals enjoy, from the lowest street dealers to the high earning bosses of criminal organisations. In some cases vehicles and houses are being purchased that would be well beyond the means of these criminals legal earnings and they are able to flaunt this wealth without worrying about the real world implications or threats that would go with it. A fundamental principle of the server is to roleplay fear and I think criminals should need to roleplay how they would spend and justify their increased earnings relative to the amount of money they have earned and been taxed on. Why is this important. IRL the hardest thing a criminal has to do is launder money. Increasingly sophisticated methods are required to achieve this due to the level of online information available to investigators, but what remains a constant is no successful criminal in the US today stays that way without a laundering scheme. In game criminals don’t really need to think about how they justify the proceeds of crime, but they should and they should be looking over their shoulder at all times. I believe the requirement to think about this would bring two challenges to the criminals, how they achieve “clean” money or if they don’t how they can justify their standard of living without it. This should act as a deterrent for the low street level criminal holding large value assets, but also allow for more selective integration of the successful criminal into the more normal echelons of SA society (I also think it might bring about some property price deflation). How would it work? Jurisdiction Like in real life the IRS-CI would work in collaboration with other agencies. - = They would still require the DOJ to progress cases = They would use the LSSD and LSPD for the enforcement of warrants and any "physical activity. - The would only handle a small amount of cases. Investigation would be triggered by press coverage, PD initiation or a OOC request by FM to look into a certain player or players (the tip off) The Process - In all circumstances before an investigation can be started the agent would need to present a justification to the faction leadership. I have been giving thought to how the process would work. - The initial stage would use the ingame MDR system. This would be enough to assess the character assets. - The second stage would be in game evidence gathering, Observe the target in the process of using their ill gotten gains - The third stage process would be to request the defendants finance records (this would require admin assistance) via a court subpoena From the finance records it would be a requirement to determine the spending patterns The server can already identify taxable activity in the form of state payments or scripted jobs - It is recognised that not all earnings are scripted. It is assumed the characters RP will justify legitimate earnings and this would be visible in game. It is this income that would create the “case” - In line with the standard investigations of this nature the agent would need to then ascertain patterns or anomalies that would indicate a crime - Upon the creation of a primae facie case they would need to engage the DA to create a prosecution case o This is a departure from real life where these would be federal cases, but I don’t want to add a further layer of complexity to what I think is a really good legal system. It might be at a later date we formulate our own cases, but I don’t see that an immediate requirement or if the DA doesn’t want to do this - For the execution of warrants then the LSSD or LSPD would be used. I know IRL this would be done by the agency in question but I do not feel the need for any tactical requirement. The SD and PD have this covered so I would see this an interagency co-operation I would expect the investigation to be a slow process taking place over weeks, rather than days. As I stated elsewhere the goal here isn't to "bust" the factions, but to offer some immersive RP to both the agents and the targets. Punishment for offences - If found guilty o Jail time in line with SA Penal code o Confiscation of assets related to illegal earnings Controls - A limitation on the number of concurrent cases in review (2 max). In reality I see this being one and where more than one person is being investigated in parallel I would expect a link to exist between the cases - A “non play to win” strategy. I would love a scenario where the illegal faction members feel we are providing them with stimulus to improve their own RP and stay a step ahead of Law Enforcement, I know the server is not a play to win server, but my goal wouldn't be to win a conviction from everyone we investigate. I would like it where imaginative role play could beat the system. - Non-teamspeak. IC, IG text only. Again I know the server is non-teamspeak, but the police use it and I just wanted to clarify this. - Discord channel for faction comms - No car chases or shootings. Whilst agents would be armed this would be for self defence purposes only. All tactical or offensive work would be passed to LSPD or LSSD - A small faction. I envisage a maximum membership of 8 people. - I would want the faction to be focused on legal roleplayers i.e. not an alt to someone with 2 other illegal faction members. - Age profile of chars is important. it should reflect the agencies age demographic - Agents not permitted to work second jobs without permission (for integrity purposes) - Agents would need to demonstrate knowledge of accounting and taxation law. Much like someone taking the BAR exam What would the faction need? - A building or floor in a federal building - Some vehicles - Basic weapons in line with US Agent standards - A wage structure - I would write the protocols and guidelines o Taxation of income o Declaration of earnings o Investigative process o Laws – I would engage with DOJ for this, but do the drafting. What are the RP benefits to the server and Goals of the faction? - An avenue of challenge to the illegal RP’er that is authentic. In my view criminals should always be looking over their shoulder for this type of threat in the modern world - Hopefully it will expand the use of legal businesses and create legal jobs to support money laundering activity - Encourage low level criminals not to flaunt great wealth and hold earnings that are proportional to their character activity It would be nice to encourage criminals to rp with other business people to avoid these crimes through the use of accountants or other means of laundering their earnings. Hopefully this would bring some more legal / semi-legal roles i.e. corrupt legal roles into play - Possibly reduce the number of criminals buying high value properties or inflating the cost of such properties with high value bids I think it could provide some good role play tension to criminals. In real life when under pressure criminals tend to think of freedom before all else, but in game sentences can be relatively short and I think most people fear a loss of asset more than jail time. I do think criminals should feel some genuine financial jeopardy as a result of engaging in illegal activity. Edited May 10, 2020 by Jankara Tweaks to process 1 Link to comment
Nervous Posted May 16, 2020 Share Posted May 16, 2020 Denied, we are already internally working in this but the server isn’t ready scriptwise yet. 1 1 Link to comment
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