Fraud

In the broadest sense, a fraud is a deception made for personal gain. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and is also a civil law violation. Many hoaxes are fraudulent, although those not made for personal gain are not technically frauds. Defrauding people of money is presumably the most common type of fraud, but there have also been many fraudulent "discoveries" in art, archaeology, and science.

Definition

In criminal law, fraud is the crime or offense of deliberately deceiving another in order to damage them — usually, to obtain property or services unjustly. [1] Fraud can be accomplished through the aid of forged objects. In the criminal law of common law jurisdictions it may be called "theft by deception," "larceny by trick," "larceny by fraud and deception" or something similar.

In academia and science, fraud can refer to academic fraud - the falsifying of research findings which is a form of scientific misconduct - and in common use intellectual fraud signifies falsification of a position taken or implied by an author or speaker, within a book, controversy or debate, or an idea deceptively presented to hide known logical weaknesses. Journalistic fraud implies a similar notion, the falsification of journalistic findings.

Fraud can be committed through many methods, including mail, wire, phone, and the internet (computer crime and internet fraud).

Acts which may constitute criminal fraud include:

• bait and switch
• confidence tricks such as the 419 fraud, Spanish Prisoner, and the shell game
• false advertising
• identity theft
• false billing
• forgery of documents or signatures
• taking money which is under your control, but not yours (embezzlement)
• health fraud, selling of products of spurious use, such as quack medicines
• creation of false companies or "long firms"
• false insurance claims
• bankruptcy fraud, is a US federal crime that can lead to criminal prosecution under the charge of theft of the goods or services
• investment frauds, such as Ponzi schemes
• securities frauds such as pump and dump

Fraud, in addition to being a criminal act, is also a type of civil law violation known as a tort. A tort is a civil wrong for which the law provides a remedy. A civil fraud typically involves the act of making a false representation of a fact susceptible of actual knowledge which is relied upon by another person, to that person's detriment.

List of fraudsters

• Alves Reis, a Portuguese fraudster who forged documents to print 100,000,000 PTE in official escudo banknotes. (Adjusted for inflation, it would be worth about 150 Million USD today).
• Richard Eaton an English businessman who was business partners with mobster Paul Vario and Jimmy Burke involved in the Lufthansa heist.
• Frank Abagnale Jr., US impostor who wrote bad checks and falsely represented himself as a qualified member of professions such as airline pilot, doctor, and attorney. The film Catch Me If You Can is based of his life.
• Ivan Boesky, inside trader in the 1980s
• Otto von Bressensdorf. German-born fraudster
• Cassie Chadwick, who pretended to be Andrew Carnegie's daughter to get loans
• Anthony Di Angelis, "the Salad Oil King"
• John Draper, also known as Captain Crunch, was a phone phreaker (questionable, claimed by his partisans to be a grey hat and not to have profited from his deceptions)
• William Duer, accused of embezzlement of $238,000 from US Treasury Department in the 1790s
• Billie Sol Estes - cotton subsidy and loan fraud in 1960s, resulting in the eventual creation of the federal Office of Inspector General
• Shinichi Fujimura - archaeologist who announced on October 23, 2000 that he had discovered eight stoneware pieces, from a layer of earth, more than 600,000 years old in the Kamitakamori ruins in Tsukidate, Miyagi Prefecture, believed to be the nation's oldest. However, Fujimura confessed that he had buried the stones at the ruins in advance of the excavation.
• Konrad Kujau, German fraudster and forger responsible for the Hitler Diaries
• Mirko Manojlovic, South African conman and fraudster.
• Dennis Levine
• Colleen McCabe, English former headmistress who conned her school to the tune of £½ million
• Gregor MacGregor, Scottish conman who tried to attract investment and settlers for the non-existent country of Poyais
• Robert Maxwell, UK newspaper tycoon who milked his companies dry (he may have committed suicide to prevent exposure of this)
• Gaston Means
• Michael Milken, "The Junk Bond King"
• Barry Minkow and the ZZZZ Best scam
• Frederick Emerson Peters, US impersonator who wrote bad checks
• Charles Ponzi and Ponzi scheme
• Peter Popoff, whose faith healing-based Pentecostal televangelist ministry was debunked by professional skeptic James Randi and television presenter Johnny Carson
• Christopher Rocancourt who defrauded Hollywood celebrities
• Franz Tausend, fake alchemist
• Richard Whitney, who stole from the New York Stock Exchange Gratuity Fund in 1930s
• Robert Vesco, US fugitive financier
• L. Ron Hubbard, Creator of Scientology
• Thomas R Thompson, accused of stealing more than 800000 in routers he did not produce on ebay

See also

• Accounting scandals
• Advance fee fraud
• Affinity fraud
• Bank fraud
• Benefit fraud, falsely claiming money from the government.
• Benford's law
• Bribery
• Caper stories (such as The Sting)
• Charity fraud
• Click fraud
• Corporate abuse
• Corruption
• Creative accounting
• Credit card fraud
• E-mail fraud
• Electoral fraud
• Employment fraud or contract fraud
• False Claims Law
• Forex scam
• Fraud Squad
• Friendly Fraud, credit card industry term used to describe a consumer who makes an Internet purchase with his own credit card and then issues a chargeback
• Front running
• Get-rich-quick schemes
• Great Stock Exchange Fraud of 1814
• Guinness share-trading fraud, famous British business scandal of the 1980s
• Hoax
• Impersonator
• Inspector General
• Internet fraud
• Journalistic Fraud
• Mail fraud
• Missing trader fraud, also called Missing Trader Intra-Community, MTIC, or carousel fraud; is the theft of Value added tax (VAT)
• Paternity fraud
• Phishing, attempt to fraudulently acquire sensitive information
• pious frauds, a form of fraud in religion motivated by sincere zeal
• Phone fraud
• Political corruption
• Ponzi scheme
• Quatloos.com
• Questioned document examination
• Securities fraud
• Spin
• Telemarketing fraud
• The National Council Against Health Fraud
• Tunneling (fraud)
• SAS 99
• Verisimilitude
• Visa fraud
• Welfare fraud
• Welsh Benefits Investigation Group
• Wine fraud
• Wire fraud

References

• Fred Cohen. ``Frauds, Spies, and Lies - and How to Defeat Them. ISBN 1-878109-36-7 (2006). ASP Press.
• Podgor, Ellen S. Criminal Fraud, (1999) Vol, 48, No. 4 American Law Review 1Review Fraud - Alex Copola
• ICS Certification in Bank forensic Accounting ICS

External Links

• Scam & Fraud Stories - Read, share, & comment on Scam & Fraud stories.