How different countries price a lie told for money, from yuan bands to estafa
A 2010 survey of fraud examiners estimated that the typical organisation loses five percent of its yearly revenue to deception, with a median loss of 160,000 dollars. Frauds by owners and executives cost more than nine times as much as those by ordinary staff. Legal systems around the world handle the problem in strikingly different ways.
At its core, fraud is intentional deception meant to strip someone of a legal right or gain from them unfairly. It can be a civil wrong, letting a victim sue to halt the scheme or recover money, or a crime punished with fines and prison. In common law countries the tort usually requires a deliberate misstatement or concealment of an important fact that the victim is meant to rely on and does, to their cost. Intent is the hard part to prove. Civil remedies can include undoing the deal, compensation and punitive damages.
England, Wales and Northern Ireland have used the Fraud Act 2006 since 2007. It sorts the crime into three kinds: false representation, failing to disclose information and abuse of position, with up to ten years in prison on indictment. The Act does not reach Scotland, which relies on common law fraud, uttering, embezzlement and statutory offences.
Canada's Criminal Code section 380 allows up to fourteen years where the property exceeds five thousand dollars or involves a will. Its Supreme Court has held that actual loss is unnecessary; risk of prejudice suffices, and taking valuable trade secrets can count. Courts may also bar offenders from any job or volunteer role handling other people's money.
China scales punishment by amount. Under Article 266 and a 2011 judicial interpretation, fraud of 3,000 to 30,000 yuan counts as relatively large and brings up to three years, 30,000 to 500,000 yuan counts as large and brings three to ten, and anything above 500,000 yuan can mean more than ten years or life. In the Philippines the offence is estafa, from a Spanish verb meaning to swindle, carrying six months to twenty years depending on the sum. Banking, manufacturing and government are the sectors most often hit, and investigators increasingly mine financial data for telltale patterns, such as amounts clustered just under approval thresholds.
Source: Fraud
