Embezzlement

Embezzlement is the offense of unlawfully appropriating property or funds that were lawfully entrusted to the offender's care, typically by an employee, trustee, or other fiduciary, for their own use rather than for the purpose for which they were entrusted. The offense is distinguished from ordinary theft or larceny by the element of lawful initial possession: an embezzler does not unlawfully take property in the first instance but instead breaches the trust under which they were already lawfully holding it, a distinction that historically required a separate offense at common law before many jurisdictions later consolidated it with theft and other property offenses into a single broader statute. Embezzlement is a foundational category within white-collar crime, classically associated with employees who misappropriate an employer's funds over time, corporate officers who divert company assets, or trustees and fiduciaries who misuse funds held for a beneficiary, and its investigation typically depends on forensic accounting to trace discrepancies through financial records rather than on physical evidence. Because embezzlement frequently occurs gradually and is concealed through falsified records, it is commonly cited in criminological research on occupational crime as an offense whose true prevalence substantially exceeds what is ever detected or prosecuted, a pattern often summarized by criminologists studying occupational fraud as the fraud triangle of pressure, opportunity, and rationalization.