What crimes trigger federal target letters.
Target letters follow paper. The offenses that generate them - fraud, tax, corruption, laundering - are the ones proven with documents, where the government can afford to announce itself. Here is the list, and what receiving one means.
Why the government sends letters at all.
A target letter tells you a grand jury is investigating you and invites testimony or counsel contact. Prosecutors send them where the evidence is documentary and the target is unlikely to flee or destroy what is already subpoenaed - which is why they cluster in white collar practice. Violent-crime and trafficking investigations skip the courtesy: those end with arrests, not letters. Receiving one means the government believes it can indict, prefers an orderly process, and is watching how you respond.
The offenses that generate them.
Wire and mail fraud lead the league - the flexible counts behind investment schemes, business disputes turned criminal, and COVID-program cases. Then: securities fraud and insider trading; tax evasion and false returns; healthcare fraud and kickbacks; bank fraud; money laundering; PPP and EIDL fraud; public corruption and bribery; antitrust conspiracies; and false statements made along the way. The common thread is a paper trail the government already owns by the time the letter mails.
How to read the letter you received.
The letter names the district, the statutes under investigation, and your status. The statutes are the government tipping its theory - fraud sections mean loss calculations; § 371 means they think there were partners; laundering sections mean they have traced money. The invitation to testify is almost always declined - targets testifying to grand juries make cases against themselves - but the invitation to have counsel call is the real one, and it is the beginning of every good outcome these cases produce.
The seventy-two-hour response.
Preserve everything, interview no one, and get federal counsel moving: status call to the AUSA, scope mapped, and the presentation started that can turn a target back into a subject. Letters mean the vote has not happened. That is the entire opportunity.
Reading is good. Calling is better.
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