Fraud

In the broadest sense, a fraud is a deception made for personal gain, although it has a more specific legal meaning, the exact details varying between jurisdictions. Many hoaxes are fraudulent, although those not made for personal gain are not best described in this way. Not all frauds are hoaxes - electoral fraud, for example. Fraud permeates many areas of life, including art, archaeology and science. In the broad legal sense a fraud is any crime or civil wrong for gain that utilises some deception practiced on the victim as its principal method.

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 from him or her 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).
• 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.
• 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 - archeologist 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 reponsible for the Hitler Diaries
• Ivar Kreuger, “The Match King”
• 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 a 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

See also

• Accounting scandals
• Affinity fraud
• Benford's law
• Caper stories (such as The Sting)
• Click fraud
• Corporate abuse
• Creative accounting
• Credit card fraud
• Employment fraud or contract fraud
• False Claims Law
• Forex scam
• Front running
• Get-rich-quick schemes
• Hoax
• Impersonator
• Inspector General
• Internet fraud
• Mail fraud
• Phishing
• pious frauds, a form of fraud in religion motivated by sincere zeal
• Phone fraud
• Political corruption
• Ponzi scheme
• Quatloos.com
• Questioned document examination
• Spin
• The National Council Against Health Fraud
• SAS 99
• Welfare fraud
• Welsh Benefits Investigation Group

References

• Podgor, Ellen S. Criminal Fraud, (1999) Vol, 48, No. 4 American Law Review 1Review Fraud - Alex Copola