The influence of third party to the effectiveness of commercial crime investigation

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the problems that are related to the witness and acquisition of evidence during the commercial crime investigation. Design/methodology/approach Data for this research were collected primarily from the semi-structured interview session conducted with ten investigation officers from the regulatory and enforcement bodies in Malaysia. Findings The late response from witnesses and third parties will prolong the completion period of investigation. The problem of long completion period arises in a process of investigation, particularly on the cooperation of the witnesses in attending the recording statement session and providing the evidences as well as other party who are required to provide relevant information. Although there are sufficient provisions of law that allow investigation officers to acquire evidences from witnesses and third parties, there is no time limit for third parties to respond to the enquiries from the investigation officers. The degree of the difficulties and complexity of the cases also influence the completion period of the investigation of commercial crime cases. Cases like cheating, criminal breach trust and computer crimes have varieties of modus operandi and difficulty. Thus, the burden to proof beyond reasonable doubt also increased for the investigation officers to fulfill the requirement of evidences as stated in the relevant acts to satisfy the public prosecutor to bring the case to the court. Research limitations/implications The study provides some evidence to indicate that commercial crime investigation generally is a collective effort. All parties involved should participate and give their best cooperation to complete the investigation in a reasonable period of time, so that the justice can be uphold for the best interest of the victim. This study, however, is limited to small number of respondents and narrow scope of study because of sensitivity of the topics. Practical implications It should be noted that the main problem that has been faced by the investigation officers is to acquire the cooperation from relevant parties either government or nongovernment agencies and individual witness. No matter how complex is the case, it will depend largely on the willingness of relevant parties to cooperate and providing the evidences required for the investigation officers to complete the investigation within the reasonable period. The problem has to be remedied to ensure that it will not affect the perception of public especially complainants, toward the efficiency of the investigation officers, to complete the investigation. In general, the public perceptions also affect the image of the government as a whole. Originality/value This study is original as it gathers the information directly from the investigation officers who are directly involved in the commercial crime investigation. The data collected were also highly confidential and not easily accessible by researchers, which are rare in literature and invaluable for academic publications.