A GUIDE FOR FINANCIAL FRAUD INVESTIGATION & PRECAUTION by SHIVANI SHARMA (books to read for beginners .txt) 📕

other agencies estimates that 165,000 to 200,000 people are indebted to loan sharks in the United Kingdom. Illicit loan sharking is treated as a high-level crime (felony) by law enforcement, due to its links to organized crime and the serious violence involved.[21] Payday loans with high interest rates are legal in many cases, and have been described as "legal loan sharking" (in that the creditor is legally registered, pays taxes and contributions, and can reclaim remittance if taking the case to adjudication; likewise there is no threat of harm to the debtor).[22]

Loan sharks in Ireland[edit]

The Central Bank of Ireland were criticized [23] for doing nothing to protect those on low incomes, the vulnerable or have low levels of financial literacy from loan sharks when it emerged that up to 100,000 of the 360,000 loans given by moneylenders broke the law.[24]

Non-standard lenders in the United States[edit]

In the United States, there are lenders licensed to serve borrowers who cannot qualify for standard loans from mainstream sources. These smaller, non-standard lenders often operate in cash, whereas mainstream lenders increasingly operate only electronically and will not serve borrowers who do not have bank accounts. Terms such as sub-prime lending,[25] "non-standard consumer credit"[citation needed], and payday loans are often used in connection with this type of consumer finance. The availability of these services has made illegal, exploitative loan sharks rarer, but these legal lenders have also been accused of behaving in an exploitative manner. For example, payday loan operations have come under fire for charging inflated "service charges" for their services of cashing a "payday advance", effectively a short-term (no more than one or two weeks) loan for which charges may run 3–5% of the principal amount. By claiming to be charging for the "service" of cashing a paycheck, instead of merely charging interest for a short-term loan, laws that strictly regulate moneylending costs can be effectively bypassed.

Payday lending[edit]Main article: Payday loans in the United States

Licensed payday advance businesses, which lend money at high rates of interest on the security of a postdated check, are often described as loan sharks by their critics due to high interest rates that trap debtors, stopping short of illegal lending and violent collection practices. Today's payday loan is a close cousin of the early 20th century salary loan, the product to which the "shark" epithet was originally applied, but they are now legalised in some states.

A 2001 comparison of short-term lending rates charged by the Chicago Outfit organized crime syndicate and payday lenders in California revealed that, depending on when a payday loan was paid back by a borrower (generally 1–14 days), the interest rate charged for a payday loan could be considerably higher than the interest rate of a similar loan made by the organized crime syndicate.[26]

Yamikinyu in Japan[edit]Main article: Sarakin

The regulation of moneylenders is typically much looser than that of banks. In Japan, the Moneylending Control Law requires only registration in each prefecture. In Japan, as the decades-long depression lingers, banks are reluctant to spare money and regulation becomes tighter, illegal moneylending has become a social issue. Illegal moneylenders typically charge an interest of 30 or 50% in 10 days (in Japanese, these are called "to-san" ('to' meaning ten and 'san' meaning three, or 10-3) or "to-go" ('to' meaning ten and 'go' meaning five, or 10-5), which is about 1.442 million % or 267.5 million % per annum. This is against the law that sets the maximum interest rate at 20%.[27] They usually do business with those who cannot get more money from banks, legitimate consumer loans, or credit cards.

Ah Long in Malaysia and Singapore [edit]Ah Long pamphlet found in a car door handle in Malaysia

Ah Long (derived from the Cantonese phrase '大耳窿' ("big ear hole")) is a colloquial term for illegal loan sharks in Malaysia and Singapore. They lend money to people who are unable to obtain loans from banks or other legal sources, mostly targeting habitual gamblers. Often, they discreetly advertise by sticking notices, mostly on lamp posts and utility boxes around a neighbourhood, thus vandalising public property, as authorities must remove such advertisements. They charge high interest rates (generally about 40% per month/fortnight) according to Anti-Crime, Drug and Social Development Voluntary Organisation[28] and frequently threaten violence (and administer it) towards those who fail to pay on time.[29][30]

Ah Long tactics[edit]

When a person fails to pay on time, the Ah Long will set fire, spray paint, splash, or write threats in paint or markers on the walls of the property of that person as a threat of violence and to scare, and perhaps shame, the borrower into repaying the loan.[31] A common use of painting includes the characters "O$P$" meaning "owe money, pay money", as well as the debtors' unit number. According to local police authorities, there have been cases where borrowers and their family members were beaten or had their property damaged or destroyed, and some victims have committed suicide

Corruption

 "Corrupt" redirects here. For other uses, see Corrupt (disambiguation).Individual nation articles should be consulted on specific national responses to corruption.

In general, corruption is a form of dishonesty or criminal activity undertaken by a person or organization entrusted with a position of authority, often to acquire illicit benefit. Corruption may include many activities including bribery and embezzlement, though it may also involve practices that are legal in many countries.[1] Political corruption occurs when an office-holder or other governmental employee acts in an official capacity for personal gain. Now, there is a new form of corruption which is religious corruption where religious leaders monitizes religious services such as praying, prophesying and preaching by taking monies from religious believers to enrich themselves.[2] Corruption is most commonplace in kleptocracies, oligarchies, narco-states and mafia states.[citation needed]

Corruption can occur on different scales. Corruption ranges from small favors between a small number of people (petty corruption),[3] to corruption that affects the government on a large scale (grand corruption), and corruption that is so prevalent that it is part of the everyday structure of society, including corruption as one of the symptoms of organized crime. Corruption and crime are endemic sociological occurrences which appear with regular frequency in virtually all countries on a global scale in varying degree and proportion. Individual nations each allocate domestic resources for the control and regulation of corruption and crime. Strategies to counter corruption are often summarized under the umbrella term anti-corruption.

Scales of corruption[edit]A billboard in Zambia exhorting the public to "Just say no to corruption".An anti-corruption billboard at the entry into Niamey, capital of Niger. The text, translated from French, reads: "Together, let's fight against corruption at the borders", and "With my identity card or my passport plus my vaccinaton certificate, I can travel in all tranquillity within the realm of ECOWAS".

Stephen D. Morris,[4] a professor of politics, writes that political corruption is the illegitimate use of public power to benefit a private interest. Economist Ian Senior[5] defines corruption as an action to (a) secretly provide (b) a good or a service to a third party (c) so that he or she can influence certain actions which (d) benefit the corrupt, a third party, or both (e) in which the corrupt agent has authority. Daniel Kaufmann,[6] from the World Bank, extends the concept to include 'legal corruption' in which power is abused within the confines of the law—as those with power often have the ability to make laws for their protection. The effect of corruption in infrastructure is to increase costs and construction time, lower the quality and decrease the benefit.[7]

The research work on social corruption developed at The Unicist Research Institute defines that corruption allows individuals to profit from the environment through illegitimate actions while they disintegrate the system they are part of.[8]

Corruption can occur on different scales. Corruption ranges from small favors between a small number of people (petty corruption),[9] to corruption that affects the government on a large scale (grand corruption), and corruption that is so prevalent that it is part of the everyday structure of society, including corruption as one of the symptoms of organized crime.

A number of indicators and tools have been developed which can measure different forms of corruption with increasing accuracy.[10]

Petty corruption[edit]

Petty corruption occurs at a smaller scale and takes place at the implementation end of public services when public officials meet the public. For example, in many small places such as registration offices, police stations, state licensing boards,[11][12] and many other private and government sectors.

Grand corruption[edit]

Grand corruption is defined as corruption occurring at the highest levels of government in a way that requires significant subversion of the political, legal and economic systems. Such corruption is commonly found in countries with authoritarian or dictatorial governments but also in those without adequate policing of corruption.[13]

The government system in many countries is divided into the legislative, executive and judiciary branches in an attempt to provide independent services that are less subject to grand corruption due to their independence from one another.[14]

Systemic corruption[edit]

Systemic corruption (or endemic corruption)[15] is corruption which is primarily due to the weaknesses of an organization or process. It can be contrasted with individual officials or agents who act corruptly within the system.

Factors