In an environment where corporate scandals fill the headlines and ethics courses have suddenly become standard fare in business schools, Terry Leap offers welcome insights into and useful ways of thinking about a critical problem that permeates our society. His main contribution is an integrative model of white-collar crime, which smoothly incorporates influences from sociology, psychology, public policy, and business. As he explains the process that occurs across the many different categories of crimes within organizations, he finds that there are more similarities than differences between "criminals in the suites" and "criminals in the streets."Leap's definition of crimes within organizations and the people who commit them are laid out in his first chapter. He then goes on to discuss the causes of and events surrounding white-collar crime, types of crimes and criminals, the decision-making processes of white-collar criminals, and the impact of these crimes. His concluding chapter predicts future trends in corporate crime, including an explanation of why we are likely to see more crime in health care. Throughout, Leap presents numerous specific examples and cases—from famous meltdowns such as Enron and WorldCom to less-publicized incidents including a weight-loss franchisee mislabeling doughnuts as low fat and a CEO of a South Carolina regional transportation authority misusing taxpayer money for lavish meals, personal expenses, and world travel.

Terry Leap offers welcome insights into and useful ways of thinking about a critical problem that permeates our society. As he explains the process that occurs across the many different categories of crimes within organizations, he finds that there are more similarities than differences between "criminals in the suites" and "criminals in the streets." Leap's definition of crimes within organizations and the people who commit them are laid out in his first chapter. He then goes on to discuss the causes of and events surrounding white-collar crime, types of crimes and criminals, the decision-making processes of white-collar criminals, and the impact of these crimes. His concluding chapter predicts future trends in corporate crime, including an explanation of why we are likely to see more crime in health care.

An entertaining, deeply informative explanation of how high-level financial crimes work, written by an industry insider who’s an expert in the field. The way most white-collar crime works is by manipulating institutional psychology. That means creating something that looks as much as possible like a normal set of transactions. The drama comes later, when it all unwinds. Financial crime seems horribly complicated, but there are only so many ways you can con someone out of what’s theirs. In Lying for Money, veteran regulatory economist and market analyst Dan Davies tells the story of fraud through a genealogy of financial malfeasance, including: the Great Salad Oil swindle, the Pigeon King International fraud, the fictional British colony of Poyais in South America, the Boston Ladies’ Deposit Company, the Portuguese Banknote Affair, Theranos, and the Bre-X scam. Davies brings new insights into these schemes and shows how all frauds, current and historical, belong to one of four categories (“long firm,” counterfeiting, control fraud, and market crimes) and operate on the same basic principles. The only elements that change are the victims, the scammers, and the terminology. Davies has years of experience picking the bones out of some of the most famous frauds of the modern age. Now he reveals the big picture that emerges from their labyrinths of deceit and explains how fraud has shaped the entire development of the modern world economy.