This book analyzes in detail how and why people become involved in long-firm (planned bankruptcy) fraud, the similarities and differences between long-firm fraud and other crimes, the links between bankruptcy fraudsters and other professional and organized criminals, the techniques that fraudsters use, and the social and commercial relationships that exist within the operational world of the long-firm fraudster. Extensively researched, the study uses interviews with and documentation from businesspeople, credit controllers, lawyers, judges, police, fraud investigators as well as fraudsters themselves. It also makes use of extensive documentary material from contemporary and historical police and court records. Originally published in the 1980s, the revised edition of this seminal work provides a substantial new introduction written by the author to highlight the changing and unchanging relevance of the findings for a contemporary audience, and the ways in which fraud opportunities and the organization of frauds have modified in the intervening years.
Author Biography:
Dr. Michael Levi has degrees from Oxford, Cambridge, Southampton and Cardiff universities and has been Professor of Criminology at Cardiff University since 1991. He has been conducting international research on the control of white-collar and organised crime, corruption and money laundering since 1972, and has published widely on these subjects as well as editing major journals, including Criminology and Criminal Justice, the official journal of the British Society of Criminology. His academic standing was acknowledged by the award of a D.Sc. (Econ.) from Cardiff University (2007) and election to a Fellowship of the Association for Learned Societies in Social Sciences (2006). In 2007, he was awarded a 3-year Professorial Fellowship by the UK Economic and Social Research Council to develop research on transnational economic and organised crime and on responses to it. Recent public roles include membership of the UK Cabinet Office PIU steering group on proceeds of crime; European Commission sub-group on money-laundering; Scientific Expert on Organised Crime to the Council of Europe; and Parliamentary Specialist Adviser to a review of policing and anti-social behaviour in Wales. Since 2005, he has examined fraud sentencing for the UK Government Fraud Review and has conducted reviews of (a) economic crime in Europe for the Council of Europe, (b) money-laundering typologies for the ASEM countries, (c) the nature, extent and cost of fraud in the UK for the Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers, and (d) enhanced proceeds of crime recovery possibilities for the PM's Strategy Unit. Other recent projects include Evaluating the effectiveness of the Dedicated Cheque and Plastic Crime Unit (Home Office), Measuring and Reducing Crime - a project to integrate organised crime risk analysis into EC policy-making (EC), Improving Knowledge on Organised Crime (EC), Controlling the international money trail (ESRC), Analysis of British Crime Survey data on fraud and hi-tech crime (Home Office), and a Literature review of upper-level drugs trafficking (Home Office) Recent publications include: 2007 'Organised and Terrorist Crimes', The Oxford Handbook of Criminology [Editors M. Maguire, R. Morgan and R. Reiner], Fourth Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2006 'Money Laundering', Levi, M. and Reuter, P. in M. Tonry (ed), Crime and Justice: A Review of Research, Vol.34: 289-375. 2006 'The Media Construction of Financial White-Collar Crimes', British Journal of Criminology, Special Issue on Markets, Risk and Crime, 46: 1037-1057 2005 'The role of solicitors in facilitating 'Organized Crime': Situational crime opportunities and their regulation', Middleton, D. and Levi, M., Crime, Law & Social Change 42 (2-3): 123-161 (in a special issue on professionals as crime facilitators). 2004 'Reducing and preventing organised crime: An evidence-based critique', Levi, M. and Maguire, M., Crime, Law and Social Change, 41 (5), pp. 397-469 2003 'Enhancing Business Crime Reduction: UK Directors' Responsibilities to Review the Impact of Crime on Business', Levi, M., Morgan, J. and Burrows, J., Security Journal, 16(4), pp.7-28
