Graham Brooks

The Police and Fraud Investigation and the Case for a Nationalised Solution in the United Kingdom

Fraud is not treated as a major criminal concern by most UK police forces unless linked to organised crime or terrorism. This is perhaps understandable since the police have limited resources available to deal with such a complex crime. However, the consequences of the Fraud Review and Fraud Act 2006 are likely to lead to more frauds being reported to the police and more victims seeking ‘justice’. This might increase the pressure on the police to respond to the crime and reassure victims. These victims could be individuals, national or international organisations putting pressure on the police to exercise their powers of arrest and search or interview a suspect under caution. This article presents findings from a series of interviews with staff in the public and private sectors focused upon fraud, as well as other data on their views about their relationship with the police. From this research the article argues for a new nationalised fraud agency to cope better with the problem of fraud.

Measuring the cost of fraud: an opportunity for the new competitive advantage

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence, from the analysis of 132 fraud risk measurement exercises, of the average costs and rates of fraud. It advocates greater use of more accurate measurement which if monitored and repeated can secure reductions which could amount to a new competitive advantage.Design/methodology/approach – This paper has analysed 132 fraud risk measurement exercises from nine countries in a range of different sectors. Only those which assess a statistically valid sample which have sought and examined information indicating the presence of fraud, error or correctness in each case within that sample; have been completed and reported; have been externally validated; have a measurable level of statistical confidence; and have a measurable level of accuracy were included. Each exercise has been assessed to determine the percentage loss rate (PLR) and the fraud frequency rate (FFR). These data were analysed using Excel to determine average rates and further comparable dat...

Pachinko: A Japanese Addiction?

Pachinko is an ‘amusement arcade’ type machine that is popular throughout Japan, with an estimated 17.1 million ‘players’ providing an enormous annual revenue of 2.87 trillion yen (US

Online gambling and money laundering: "views from the inside"

250 billion). It is simple and easy to play and has all the hallmarks and structural features of gaming machines worldwide. While academic discourses on the addictive potential of gaming machines are well developed, their application to pachinko is very limited. This is, perhaps, due to a number of factors. First, pachinko is portrayed as a game rather than as gambling in Japan, so that addiction issues are ignored or downplayed. Second, most accounts of ‘playing’ pachinko are journalistic rather than academic. Third, academics tend to focus on police corruption and organized crime rather than addiction. Here, we take the approach that pachinko represents ‘gambling by proxy’ and explore its addictive potential. We conclude that unless pachinko is recognized as a form of gambling, present changes in Japanese legislation will be of limited value in tackling addiction.

Challenging the myth of urban regeneration: raising the profile of problem gambling with a media campaign

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the “relationship” between the regulated online gambling sector in Great Britain and potential for money laundering.Design/methodology/approach – Direct “negotiated” access and a snowball sample were used to secure five interviews with gambling personnel.Findings – The paper shows that respected online gambling sites in highly regulated jurisdictions are helping in tackling money laundering.Research limitations/implications – Only a limited number of people were interviewed.Originality/value – The paper presents interviews with key personnel in the gambling industry, in anti‐money laundering, fraud and integrity units.

Judicial decisions on cases involving problem gambling and crime in England and Wales

This paper is an examination of discourses challenging the myth of ‘gambling’ as a form of urban regeneration in Great Britain. The focus is primarily on the Daily Mail, which has continually waged a successful media campaign to “Kill the Casino Bill” and constructed a powerful public condemnation of gambling as regenerative. From an analysis of 156 gambling articles from January 2004 to December 2010 common and recurring themes emerged to dismiss gambling as a form of regeneration. These were gambling as immoral, criminal and pathological. These helped shaped discourses around which the debate on gambling was framed and structured.

The investigation of credit card fraud in Cyprus: reviewing police “effectiveness”

Previous research indicates that problem gambling is often associated with crime. Most of this research is focussed on individual psychological cases or data sets examining the relationship between crime rates and location of gambling venues. There is little international research on the response of criminal courts in recognising and accepting problem gambling as a reason for committing crime. This paper provides an examination of the Court of Appeal decisions in England and Wales from January 2000 to January 2009 drawing on the original cases and appeals. The findings of this research are relevant to an international audience where problem gambling is dismissed as a reason for committing crime when facing sentence. It was concluded that although judges recognised problem gambling as a condition, problem gambling did not appear to be accepted as a factor explaining the commission of the crime in England and Wales.

Introduction: Fraud, Corruption and Sport

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the “effectiveness” of the Cyprus police in investigating credit card fraud.Design/methodology/approach – In total, 19 semi‐structured interviews with key criminal justice personnel were undertaken to assess the current capacity of police in investigating credit card fraud.Findings – The paper discovers that a far more co‐ordinated approach is needed to tackle credit card fraud in Cyprus, with a lack of specialised knowledge of fraud a major concern.Research limitations/implications – All interview schedules were sent before the interviews took place and three of the respondents provided written responses only.Originality/value – This is the first study of its kind that involved primary research interviewing 19 key personnel involved in policing credit card fraud in Cyprus.

Why Do Those in Sport Commit Fraud and Corruption

There is a wealth of literature on the sociology of sport (Newman, 1968, Taylor, 1971; Newman, 1972; Dunning and Sheard, 1979; Chinn, 1991; Philips and Tomlinson, 1992; Giulianotti, 1999; Dunning, 1999; Horne et al., 1999; Hoberman, 2001; Gutmann, 2004; Dimeo, 2007; Giulianotti and Robertson, 2009; Millward, 2011; Spaaij, 2012; McGuire, 2012; Horne et al., 2012; Dennis and Grix, 2012). This covers a range of specific sociological, political and cultural issues in sport, such as racism, gambling, images of sport, globalisation and club ownership. The focus of this book, however, is the reach and depth of individual and organisational fraud and corruption in sport; as such, we see it as a pioneering study of the subject and hope that it provides a contribution to the wealth of ongoing sociological debates and the world of sport.

Fraud and Corruption in Boxing

The first documented case of corruption in international sport is attributed to the athlete Eupolos of Thessalia (Maennig, 2005). There are also records of corruption of ‘sports management’ and administration in the ancient Olympics (Decker, 1995). Then, as now, however, there is no ‘specific class’ of people (Dittenhofer, 1995) that commits acts of fraud and corruption. As we have already illustrated, fraud and corruption is committed by athletes, sports administrators, professional coaches and managers working in or as individuals for sporting bodies; some of the examples in this book examine fraud and corruption in specific sports in more depth, but for now our attention is on why people involved in the world of sport commit acts of fraud and corruption.