A GUIDE FOR FINANCIAL FRAUD INVESTIGATION & PRECAUTION, SHIVANI SHARMA [read my book txt] 📗

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Examples include the misdirection of company funds into "shadow companies" (and then into the pockets of corrupt employees), the skimming of foreign aid money, scams and other corrupt activity.

Graft[edit]Main article: Graft (politics)

The political act of Graft (American English), is a well known and now global form of political corruption, being the unscrupulous and illegal use of a politician's authority for personal gain, when funds intended for public projects are intentionally misdirected in order to maximize the benefits to illegally private interests of the corrupted individual(s) and their cronies.

Extortion and blackmail[edit]Main article: Extortion

While bribery is the use of positive inducements for corrupt aims, extortion and blackmail centre around the use of threats. This can be the threat of violence or false imprisonment as well as exposure of an individual's secrets or prior crimes.

This includes such behavior as an influential person threatening to go to the media if they do not receive speedy medical treatment (at the expense of other patients), threatening a public official with exposure of their secrets if they do not vote in a particular manner, or demanding money in exchange for continued secrecy.

Influence peddling[edit]

Influence peddling is the illegal practice of using one's influence in government or connections with persons in authority to obtain favours or preferential treatment for another, usually in return for payment.

Networking[edit]Main article: Business networking

Networking can be an effective way for job-seekers to gain a competitive edge over others in the job-market. The idea is to cultivate personal relationships with prospective employers, selection panelists, and others, in the hope that these personal affections will influence future hiring decisions. This form of networking has been described as an attempt to corrupt formal hiring processes, where all candidates are given an equal opportunity to demonstrate their merits to selectors. The networker is accused of seeking non-meritocratic advantage over other candidates; advantage that is based on personal fondness rather than on any objective appraisal of which candidate is most qualified for the position.[78][79]

Euro bank notes hidden in sleeve.Abuse of discretion[edit]Main article: Abuse of discretion

Abuse of discretion refers to the misuse of one's powers and decision-making facilities. Examples include a judge improperly dismissing a criminal case or a customs official using their discretion to allow a banned substance through a port.

Favoritism, nepotism and clientelism[edit]Main article: Nepotism

Favouritism, nepotism and clientelism involve the favouring of not the perpetrator of corruption but someone related to them, such as a friend, family member or member of an association. Examples would include hiring or promoting a family member or staff member to a role they are not qualified for, who belongs to the same political party as you, regardless of merit.[80]

Some states do not forbid these forms of corruption.[citation needed]

Corruption and economic growth[edit]

Corruption is strongly negatively associated with the share of private investment and, hence, it lowers the rate of economic growth.[81]

Corruption reduces the returns of productive activities. If the returns to production fall faster than the returns to corruption and rent-seeking activities, resources will flow from productive activities to corruption activities over time. This will result in a lower stock of producible inputs like human capital in corrupted countries.[81]

Corruption creates the opportunity for increased inequality, reduces the return of productive activities, and, hence, makes rentseeking and corruption activities more attractive. This opportunity for increased inequality not only generates psychological frustration to the underprivileged but also reduces productivity growth, investment, and job opportunities.[81]

Causes of corruption[edit]

According to a 2017 survey study, the following factors have been attributed as causes of corruption:[82]

Greed of money, power, Luxury or any other materialistic desires. Higher levels of market and political monopolization Low levels of democracy, weak civil participation and low political transparency Higher levels of bureaucracy and inefficient administrative structures Low press freedom Low economic freedom Large ethnic divisions and high levels of in-group favoritism Gender inequality Resource wealth Poverty Political instability Weak property rights Contagion from corrupt neighboring countries Low levels of education Lack of commitment to the society. Extravagant Family.

It has been noted that in a comparison of the most corrupt with the least corrupt countries, the former group contains nations with huge socio-economic inequalities, and the latter contains nations with a high degree of social and economic justice. [83]

Preventing corruption[edit]

R. Klitgaard[84] postulates that corruption will occur if the corrupt gain is greater than the penalty multiplied by the likelihood of being caught and prosecuted:

Corrupt gain > Penalty × Likelihood of being caught and prosecuted

The degree of corruption will then be a function of the degree of monopoly and discretion in deciding who should get how much on the one hand and the degree to which this activity is accountable and transparent on the other hand. Still, these equations (which should be understood in a qualitative rather than a quantitative manner) seem to be lacking one aspect: a high degree of monopoly and discretion accompanied by a low degree of transparency does not automatically lead to corruption without any moral weakness or insufficient integrity. Also, low penalties in combination with a low probability of being caught will only lead to corruption if people tend to neglect ethics and moral commitment. The original R.Klitgaard equation has therefore been amended by C. Stephan[85] into:

Degree of corruption = Monopoly + Discretion – Transparency – Morality

The moral dimension has an intrinsic and an extrinsic component. The intrinsic component refers to a mentality problem, the extrinsic component to external circumstances like poverty, inadequate remuneration, inappropriate work conditions and inoperable or over-complicated procedures which demoralize people and let them search for "alternative" solutions.

According to the amended Klitgaard equation, limitation of monopoly and regulator discretion of individuals and a high degree of transparency through independent oversight by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the media plus public access to reliable information could reduce the problem. Djankov and other researchers[86] have independently addressed the important role information plays in fighting corruption with evidence from both developing and developed countries. Disclosing financial information of government officials to the public is associated with improving institutional accountability and eliminating misbehavior such as vote buying. The effect is specifically remarkable when the disclosures concern politicians’ income sources, liabilities and asset level instead of just income level. Any extrinsic aspects that might reduce morality should be eliminated. Additionally, a country should establish a culture of ethical conduct in society with the government setting the good example in order to enhance the intrinsic morality.

Enhancing Civil Society Participation[edit]

Creating bottom-up mechanisms, promoting citizens participation and encouraging the values of integrity, accountability, and transparency are crucial components of fighting corruption. The implementation of the ALACs “Advocacy and Legal Advice Centres (ALACs)” has led to a significant increase in the number of citizen complaints against acts of corruption received and documented[87] and also to the development of strategies for good governance by involving citizens willing to fight against corruption.[88]

Anti-corruption programmes[edit]See also: List of anti-corruption agencies

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Anti-corruption.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA, USA 1977) was an early paradigmatic law for many western countries i.e. industrial countries of the OECD. There, for the first time the old principal-agent approach was moved back where mainly the victim (a society, private or public) and a passive corrupt member (an individual) were considered, whereas the active corrupt part was not in the focus of legal prosecution. Unprecedented, the law of an industrial country directly condemned active corruption, particularly in international business transactions, which was at that time in contradiction to anti-bribery activities of the World Bank and its spin-off organization Transparency International.

As early as 1989 the OECD had established an ad hoc Working Group in order to explore "...the concepts fundamental to the offense of corruption, and the exercise of national jurisdiction over offenses committed wholly or partially abroad."[89] Based on the FCPA concept, the Working Group presented in 1994 the then "OECD Anti-Bribery Recommendation" as precursor for the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions[90] which was signed in 1997 by all member countries and came finally into force in 1999. However, because of ongoing concealed corruption in international transactions several instruments of Country Monitoring[91] have been developed since then by the OECD in order to foster and evaluate related national activities in combating foreign corrupt practices. One survey shows that after the implementation of heightened review of multinational firms under the convention in 2010 firms from countries that had signed the convention were less likely to use bribery.[92]

In 2013, a document[93] produced by the economic and private sector professional evidence and applied knowledge services help-desk discusses some of the existing practices on anti-corruption. They found:

The theories behind the fight against corruption are moving from a Principal agent approach to a collective action problem. Principal-agent theories seem not to be suitable to target systemic corruption. The role of multilateral institutions has been crucial in the fight against corruption. UNCAC provides a common guideline for countries around the world. Both Transparency International and the World Bank provide assistance to national governments in term of diagnostic and design of anti-corruption policies. The use of anti-corruption agencies have proliferated in recent years after the signing of UNCAC. They found no convincing evidence on the extent of their contribution, or the best way to structure them. Traditionally anti-corruption policies have been based on success experiences and common sense. In recent years there has been an effort to provide a more systematic evaluation of the effectiveness of anti-corruption policies. They found that this literature is still in its infancy. Anti-corruption policies that may be in general recommended to developing countries may not be suitable for post-conflict countries. Anti-corruption policies in fragile states have to be carefully tailored. Anti-corruption policies can improve the business environment. There is evidence that lower corruption may facilitate doing business and improve firm’s productivity. Rwanda in the last decade has made tremendous progress in improving governance and the business environment providing a model to follow for post-conflict countries.[93]

Corruption tourism[edit]See also: Kleptocracy Tour

In some countries people travel to corruption hot spots or a specialist tour company takes them on corruption city