A criminal conspiracy is when multiple people agree to partake in a criminal act. It may just be two people, but it could be more. Some conspiracies involved dozens or even hundreds of people. But the key element is that there has to be more than one person involved – multiple people must be working together to accomplish that goal.
Next, those individuals need to take at least one step toward the completion of the conspiracy. That step that they take may not even be illegal in its own right. But by furthering the conspiracy, they are getting closer to breaking the law as planned. They could already be guilty of conspiracy charges.
The big difference, then, is that the illegal act may not have happened, but the person could still be arrested for being part of the conspiracy. This is much different than other criminal charges, where people are arrested only after they have broken the law.
An example of how this may happen
For instance, say that four people are involved in a scheme that revolves around human trafficking. They are planning to use a rental van to bring people across the border illegally.
The group sits down and discusses how they plan to do this. Two of them then go out and rent the van. But the authorities break up the conspiracy and everyone gets arrested before they can actually bring anyone else over the border. Renting the van was not illegal, of course, but it was one step toward furthering their conspiracy. This is what allowed the arrest to take place.
This can make for a very complicated criminal case. If you are facing conspiracy charges, you must know what legal options you have.