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FraudIn 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, archaelogogy 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. FraudIn 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, archaelogogy 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. 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 criminal law it is called "theft by deception." Fraud can be committed through many methods, including mail, wire, phone, and the internet (see computer crime and internet fraud).
Acts which may constitute criminal fraud include: 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.
Contents: English Law
In England and Wales the common law offence of conspiracy to defraud has been retained alongside the statutory form of conspiracy, and it is far wider in its scope than any of the individual statutory offences based on theft including agreements to do something that might not be an offence if done by one person. Examples given by the Law Commission include: The term "fraud" is used generically to describe a number of offences in which the overriding component is that of deception (cf the allied torts such as conversion). Many of the criminal offences have a further common element of dishonesty, although in some there is no requirement that the dishonest person is intent on gaining for himself. It is sufficient that he has an intent to cause to loss to another. Many of the criminal offences of fraud have been consolidated into the Theft Act 1968, the Theft Act 1978 and the Theft (Amendment) Act 1996 which created the new offence of obtaining a money transfer by deception. More specific offences may be found in other statutes such as impersonating a police officer under s90 Police Act 1996; or using a forged instrument under the Forgery & Counterfeiting Act 1981 (previously an offence known under the somewhat prosaic term of "uttering").
Criminal offences of fraud at English Law: Known and alleged fraudsters and various forms of fraud
Alves Reis, a Portuguese fraudster who forged documents to print official escudo banknotes. He is considered to be the biggest counterfeiter of the 20th century. In 1925 he counterfeited 100,000,000 PTE. Adjusted for inflation, it would be worth about 150 Million USD today. Copyright Notice: © 2006 Carbuncle All rights not specifically granted by the GNU Free Documentation License are reserved. The content of this article may be freely copied and used on other web-sites so long as www.eoft.com is acknowledged as the source of the content and an active hypertext link back to www.eoft.com is provided from the page using this content. This content is NOT in the public domain.This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
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