Organized crime: securities, thefts and frauds (second series) : hearings ... Ninety-third Congress, first session, pursuant to section 4, Senate Resolution 46, 93d Congress.

Hearings held June 29-

Identity fraud and land registration systems : an Australian perspective

There is no doubt that fraud in relation to land transactions is a problem that resonates amongst land academics, practitioners, and stakeholders involved in conveyancing. As each land registration and conveyancing process increasingly moves towards a fully electronic environment, we need to make sure that we understand and guard against the frauds that can occur. What this paper does is examine the types of fraud that have occurred in paper-based conveyancing systems in Australia and considers how they might be undertaken in the National Electronic Conveyancing System (NECS) that is currently under development. Whilst no system can ever be infallible, it is suggested that by correctly imposing the responsibility for identity verification on the appropriate individual, the conveyancing system adopted can achieve the optimum level of fairness in terms of allocation of responsibility and loss. As we sit on the cusp of a new era of electronic conveyancing, the framework suggested here provides a model for minimising the risks of forged mortgages and appropriately allocating the loss. Importantly it also recognises that the electronic environment will see new opportunities for those with criminal intent to undermine the integrity of land transactions. An appreciation of this now, can see the appropriate measures put in place to minimise the risk.

Land fraud and inappropriate dealings in an electronic environment : An Australian and New Zealand perspective

The thesis presented in this paper is that the land fraud committed by Matthew Perrin in Queensland and inflicted upon Roger Mildenhall in Western Australia demonstrates the need for urgent procedural reform to the conveyancing process. Should this not occur, then calls to reform the substantive principles of the Torrens system will be heard throughout the jurisdictions that adopt title by registration, particularly in those places where immediate indefeasibility is still the norm. This paper closely examines the factual matrix behind both of these frauds, and asks what steps should have been taken to prevent them occurring. With 2012 bringing us Australian legislation embedding a national e-conveyancing system and a new Land Transfer Act for New Zealand we ask what legislative measures should be introduced to minimise the potential for such fraud. In undertaking this study, we reflect on whether the activities of Perrin and the criminals responsible for stealing Mildenhall's land would have succeeded under the present system for automated registration utilised in New Zealand.

Identity verification in conveyancing : the failure of current legislative and regulatory measures, and recommendations for change

"Defrauding land titles systems impacts upon us all. Those who deal in land include ordinary citizens, big business, small business, governments, not-for-profit organisation, deceased estates...Fraud here touches almost everybody." the thesis presented in this paper is that the current and disparate steps taken by jurisdictions to alleviate land fraud associated with identity-based crimes are inadequate. The centrepiece of the analysis is the consideration of two scenarios that have recently occurred. One is the typical scenario where a spouse forges the partner's signature to obtain a mortgage from a financial institution. The second is atypical. It involves a sophisticated overseas fraud duping many stakeholders involved in the conveyancing process. After outlining these scenarios, we will examine how identity verification requirements of the United Kingdom, Ontario, the Australian states, and New Zealand would have been applied to these two frauds. Our conclusion is that even though some jurisdictions may have prevented the frauds from occurring, the current requirements are inadequate. We use the lessons learnt to propose what we consider core principles for identity verification in land transactions.

Boards' contribution to strategy and innovation

Among the most disputed issues within the business arena and among academic scholars are which role boards of directors are expected to fulfill, and how they contribute to a company’s success and survival (Monks & Minow, 2008). Recent failures of large corporations worldwide has led corporate governance and strategic management scholars to call for increased board involvement in decision-making (Tricker, 2009) that has paralleled regulators’ requests for higher monitoring and punishments in the case of frauds and misbehaviors (Coffee, 2005)

Fraud risk and the visibility of carbon

In recent years, carbon has been increasingly rendered ‘visible’ both discursively and through political processes that have imbued it with economic value. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been constructed as social and environmental costs and their reduction or avoidance as social and economic gain. The ‘marketisation’ of carbon, which has been facilitated through various compliance schemes such as the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), the Kyoto Protocol, the proposed Australian Emissions Reduction Scheme and through the voluntary carbon credit market, have attempted to bring carbon into the ‘foreground’ as an economic liability and/or opportunity. Accompanying the increasing economic visibility of carbon are reports of frauds and scams – the ‘gaming of carbon markets’(Chan 2010). As Lohmann (2010: 21) points out, ‘what are conventionally classed as scams or frauds are an inevitable feature of carbon offset markets, not something that could be eliminated by regulation targeting the specific businesses or state agencies involved’. This paper critiques the disparate discourses of fraud risk in carbon markets and examines cases of fraud within emerging landscapes of green criminology.

A Few Best Men

Like most of Stephan Elliott’s movies, A Few Best Men is difficult to discuss without focusing on the director himself. A wedding-gone-wrong comedy, A Few Best Men is Elliott’s first Australian feature film in seventeen years. After directing the low-budget crime-thriller Frauds (1993), Elliott achieved worldwide success as writer-director of the Oscar-winning road movie Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994). A quirky and visually striking film about two drag-queens and a transsexual’s journey across the harsh Australian outback in a bus named Priscilla, the movie earned over US$70 million at the international box-office and became an instant Australian classic. Elliott’s career, however, self-destructed soon after...

Carbon emission accounting fraud

This chapter explores the motivation behind potential carbon emission accounting fraud by corporations. There are several different possible risks of carbon emission accounting fraud which remain mostly overlooked by researchers to date, despite the fact that such frauds have a negative impact on a country’s economy as well as the real purpose of mitigating carbon emissions. The chapter offers discussion of some potential risks of carbon emission accounting fraud as well as related prevention policy. The study suggests that an effective mandatory carbon emission related fraud prevention policy is essential to eliminate opportunities to commit such fraud by corporations.

Itämafia : Uhkakuvapolitiikka, rikosilmiöt ja kulttuuriset merkitykset

The Eastern Mafia Threat policy, crime phenomena, and cultural meanings An interdisciplinary research on the crime phenomena and the threat policy relating to the organized crime and the mafia of Russia and Estonia is based on 151 expert interviews, statistics, documents, research literature, and press material. The main part of the material consists of interviews of the Finnish, Estonian and Russian police authorities specialized in the problem of organized crime, and the reports on the crime situation drawn up in the Finnish diplomatic representations in Tallinn and St Petersburg. The interviews have been gathered in the years 1996-2001. The main theoretical tools of the research are constructivist research on social problems, and political psychology. Definitional processes of social problems and cultural semantic structures behind them are identified in the analysis and connected to the analysis of the crime cases. Both in the Anglo-American and Russian cultural frames there appears an inflated and exaggerated talk, according to which the mafia rules everything in Russia and is spreading everywhere. There is the traditional anti-Semitic paranoia in the core of this cultural symbiosis produced by Russian legal nihilism, the theory of totalitarianism of Sovietology, and the inertia of Russian anti-capitalism. To equate the Sicilian Mafia with Russia is an anachronism, since no empirical proof of systematic uncontrolled violence or absolute power vacuum in Russia can be found. In the Anglo-American policy of threat images, "the Russian mafia" was seen as a commodified conspiracy theory, which the police, the media, and the research took advantage of, blurring the line between fact and fiction. In Finland, the evolution of the policy of threat images proceeded in three phases: Initially, extensive rolling of refugees and criminals from Russia to Finland was emphasized in the beginning of the 1990's. In the second phase, the eastern mafia was said to infiltrate all over Finnish society and administration. Finland was, however, found immune to this kind of spreading. In the third phase, in the 21st century, the organized crime of Finland was said to be lead from abroad. In Finland, the policy of threat images was especially canalised to moral panics connected to "eastern prostitution". In Estonia, the policy of threat images emphasized the crime organized by the Russian authorities and politicians in order to weaken Estonia. In Russia, the policy of threat images emphasized the total criminalizing of society caused by criminal capitalism. In every country, the policy of threat images was affected by a so-called large-group identity, a term by Vamik Volkan, in which a so-called chosen trauma caused a political paranoia of an outer and inner danger. In Finland, procuring, car theft, and narcotics crimes were at their widest arranged by the Finnish often with the help of the Estonians. The Russians had no influence in the most serious violent crimes in Finland, although the number of assassinations were at least 5, 000 in Russia in the 1990's. In Russia, the assassinations were on one hand connected to marital problems, on the other hand to the pursuit of public attention and a hoped-for effect by the aid of the murder of an influential person. In the white-collar crime phenomena between Finland and Russia, the Finnish state and Finnish corporations gained remarkable benefit of the frauds aimed at the states of the Soviet Union and Russia in 1980's-21st century. The situation of Estonia was very difficult compared to that of Russia in the 1990's, which was manifested in the stagnation of the Estonian police and judicial authorities, the crimes of the police and the voluntary paramilitary organization, bomb explosions, the rebellion called "the jaeger crisis" in the voluntary paramilitary organization, and the "blood autumn" of Eastern Virumaa, in other words terror. The situation of Estonia had a powerful effect on the crime situation of Finland and on the security of the Finnish diplomats. In the continuum of the Finnish policy of threat images, Russia and the Russians were, however, presented as a source of a marked danger.

Controle Interno em órgão da Marinha do Brasil: similaridades e diferenças com o modelo COSO-I

Esta dissertação possui como objetivo oferecer uma contribuição para o estudo dos controles internos no setor público brasileiro, por meio de comparação entre os aspectos do sistema de controle interno de um órgão público com os conceitos disseminados pelo COSO e literatura correlata. O senso comum, apoiado em inúmeras denúncias veiculadas na mídia sobre superfaturamentos e fraudes ocorridas na Administração Pública, remete à ideia de que os órgãos desse setor não possuem mecanismos suficientes que visem evitar esses desvios de recurso do Erário. A pesquisa foi conduzida por meio de um estudo de caso, tendo como unidade de análise o processo de pagamento de pessoal de uma Organização Militar da Marinha. Para tanto, foi elaborado um instrumento de avaliação do controle interno, baseado no modelo COSO-I adequado à realidade da entidade estudada, para em seguida, com o apoio dessa ferramenta, verificar o nível de harmonização do sistema de controle interno da organização com a estrutura teórica, evidenciando as similaridades e diferenças entre eles. Os resultados apontam para um nível de harmonização de 76,58%. Das diferenças encontradas, 71% das diferenças podem ser explicadas por fatores externos à organização e 29% podem ser explicados pelo modelo interno de gestão, podendo ser convertidos em proximidades com ações executadas na própria organização.

Fraudes corporativas: um estudo de casos múltiplos à luz da teoria dos escândalos corporativos

O presente estudo é uma investigação empírica de natureza qualitativa e tem por objetivo comparar as características das fraudes praticadas por meio de manipulação nas demonstrações contábeis das empresas Daslu, Kmart e Avestruz Master. Buscou-se verificar diferenças entre fraudes no Brasil e nos Estados Unidos, no que se refere às motivações e finalidades da ação fraudulenta, aos métodos de manipulação contábil utilizados e à governança corporativa adotada pelas empresas. O trabalho foi desenvolvido seguindo a metodologia do estudo de casos múltiplos, utilizando-se um protocolo, que contemplou os procedimentos e as regras gerais obedecidas na pesquisa, com a função de incrementar a confiabilidade do estudo e orientar o trabalho do pesquisador. A seleção dos casos estudados foi feita com base em pesquisas anteriores, que mencionaram fraudes praticadas no Brasil e nos Estados Unidos, na última década. Os resultados indicam que as fraudes apresentaram diferenças na natureza e na autoria dos atos fraudulentos, com evidências da aplicação das teorias do triângulo da fraude (TTF) e dos escândalos corporativos (TEC). Considerando que as corporações brasileiras estudadas possuíam sistema de governança corporativa concentrado, similar ao de empresas europeias, as diferenças observadas nas fraudes investigadas podem ser explicadas pela teoria dos escândalos corporativos, defendida por Coffee Jr. (2005).

Procedimentos utilizados pela Auditoria Interna para detecção de fraudes: estudo de caso em uma empresa privada operadora de planos de saúde

A presente pesquisa objetiva verificar se os procedimentos utilizados pela Auditoria Interna na detecção de fraudes em uma empresa privada operadora de planos de saúde permitiram a coleta de evidências confiáveis e suficientes para suportar as conclusões dos auditores sobre os fatos reportados nos relatórios de auditoria interna. Para realização do estudo, adotou-se como estratégia investigativa, o estudo de caso único. As técnicas utilizadas ao longo de toda a pesquisa foram as análises documentais e de conteúdo, baseadas nos objetivos propostos no estudo e na fundamentação teórica. A pesquisa concentrou-se nas análises dos relatórios de auditoria interna que reportaram ocorrências de fraudes na empresa estudada, emitidos nos anos de 2010, 2011 e 2012; contudo optou-se, também, por descrever as rotinas e práticas operacionais relacionadas à atuação do departamento de auditoria que contribuíram para uma melhor compreensão dos dados e do resultado do estudo. Os principais achados demonstram que os procedimentos utilizados pela Auditoria Interna na detecção de fraudes permitiram a coleta de evidências de auditoria confiáveis e suficientes para suportar as conclusões dos auditores. O resultado da pesquisa indica, também, que não existe um padrão de utilização dos procedimentos de auditoria. De acordo com o tipo de fraude e objetivo, o auditor interno deve definir quais os procedimentos de auditoria devem ser utilizados na obtenção de evidências de auditoria confiáveis e suficientes para suportar as suas conclusões.

Differentiation of the rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) from Atlantic salmon (Salmon salar) by the AFLP-derived SCAR

A species-specific SCAR marker for rainbow trout, which was used to detect adulteration and fraudulent labeling in Atlantic salmon products, has been developed based on the AFLP analysis and evaluated in this study. The SCAR marker could be amplified and visualized in 1% agarose gel in all tested rainbow trout samples and absent in all salmon samples. Using DNA admixtures, the detection of 1% (0.5 ng), 10% (5 ng) rainbow trout DNA in Atlantic salmon DNA for fresh and processed samples, respectively was readily achieved. The molecular approach was sensitive and demonstrated to be a rapid and reliable method for identifying frauds in salmon products and could be extended for applications of species identification in food industry.

Rent-seekers' lost El Dorado: Vietnam's financial turmoil, 2007-2013

In this investigation, we examined 256 cases of financial failure and fraud in Vietnam’s chaotic years from 2007 to 2013. Categorical data analyses suggest that the rent-seeking approach, or resource-based orientation, alone does not help explain the outcome of a business intention while the association between Orientation and Approach is the best-fit predictor. Rampant financial collapse not only increases the cost of funds but also erodes trust in the economy. Entrepreneurship development and creativity capacity building, in light of this, are necessary to improve socio-economic conditions and the environment. In this manuscript, we also introduce intuitive and cognitive factors to predict ex-ante outcome of a financing scheme.