Fraud versus manipulation by white-collar criminals: an empirical study

Abstract

This article addresses the following research question: What differences might be found between white-collar criminals conducting fraud versus white-collar criminals involved in other kinds of financial crime? This research is important, as studies of white-collar criminals so far has focused on case studies rather than statistical analysis of a larger sample. Based on articles in Norwegian financial newspapers for one year, a total of 57 white-collar criminals convicted to jail sentence were identified. The average age of the convicted persons was 51 years. 54 out of 57 criminals were men. The average sentence was 3 years imprisonment. While no differences between fraud cases and non-fraud cases were found to be statistically different in this study, imprisonment for white-collar fraud cases was a longer jail sentence, fraud cases were associated with white-collar criminals with lower official persona income, and a greater number of persons were involved in each fraud case.