A long firm fraud (also known as a consumer credit fraud) is a crime that uses a trading company set up for fraudulent purposes; the basic operation is to run the company as an apparently legitimate business by buying goods and paying suppliers promptly to secure a good credit record. [1] Once they are sufficiently well-established, the perpetrators purchase the next round of goods on credit, then decamp with the goods and profits from previous sales. The goods can then be sold elsewhere. [2] The procedure needs a certain amount of money to set up, often the proceeds from another crime or a previous long firm. Sometimes an individual who does time in jail for assisting the fraud is paid for the time served. Long firm frauds have become significantly less common in recent years since it is no longer possible to operate for any length of time without leaving a significant paper trail.
The name of the practice originated from the Kray twins' organized crime gang in 1960s London, known as "the Firm." The gang practiced both quick ("short") scams and "long" ones, that took time to set up and execute; these were known as "long firm" jobs. [3] [4]
Organized crime is a category of transnational, national, or local group of centralized enterprises run to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally thought of as a form of illegal business, some criminal organizations, such as terrorist groups, rebel forces, and separatists, are politically motivated. Many criminal organizations rely on fear or terror to achieve their goals or aims as well as to maintain control within the organization and may adopt tactics commonly used by authoritarian regimes to maintain power. Some forms of organized crime simply exist to cater towards demand of illegal goods in a state or to facilitate trade of goods and services that may have been banned by a state. Sometimes, criminal organizations force people to do business with them, such as when a gang extorts protection money from shopkeepers. Street gangs may often be deemed organized crime groups or, under stricter definitions of organized crime, may become disciplined enough to be considered organized. A criminal organization can also be referred to as an outfit, a gang, crime family, mafia, mob, (crime) ring, or syndicate; the network, subculture, and community of criminals involved in organized crime may be referred to as the underworld or gangland. Sociologists sometimes specifically distinguish a "mafia" as a type of organized crime group that specializes in the supply of extra-legal protection and quasi-law enforcement. Academic studies of the original "Mafia", the Italian Mafia, as well as its American counterpart, generated an economic study of organized crime groups and exerted great influence on studies of the Russian mafia, the Chinese triads, the Hong Kong triads, and the Japanese yakuza.
In criminology, corporate crime refers to crimes committed either by a corporation, or by individuals acting on behalf of a corporation or other business entity. For the worst corporate crimes, corporations may face judicial dissolution, sometimes called the "corporate death penalty", which is a legal procedure in which a corporation is forced to dissolve or cease to exist.
Embezzlement is a term commonly used for a type of financial crime, usually involving theft of money from a business or employer. It often involves a trusted individual taking advantage of their position to steal funds or assets, most commonly over a period of time.
Ronald James "Ronnie" Kray and Reginald "Reggie" Kray were English gangsters or organised crime figures and identical twin brothers from Haggerston who were prominent from the late 1950s until their arrest in 1968. Their gang, known as the Firm, was based in Bethnal Green, where the Kray twins lived. They were involved in murder, armed robbery, arson, protection rackets, gambling and assaults. At their peak in the 1960s, they gained a certain measure of celebrity status by mixing with prominent members of London society, being photographed by David Bailey and interviewed on television.
A merchant bank is historically a bank dealing in commercial loans and investment. In modern British usage, it is the same as an investment bank. Merchant banks were the first modern banks and evolved from medieval merchants who traded in commodities, particularly cloth merchants. Historically, merchant banks' purpose was to facilitate or finance the production and trade of commodities, hence the name "merchant". Few banks today restrict their activities to such a narrow scope.
A protection racket is a type of racket and a scheme of organized crime perpetrated by a potentially hazardous organized crime group that generally guarantees protection outside the sanction of the law to another entity or individual from violence, robbery, ransacking, arson, vandalism, and other such threats, in exchange for payments at regular intervals. Each payment is called "protection money" or a "protection fee". An organized crime group determines an affordable or reasonable fee by negotiating with each of its payers, to ensure that each payer can pay the fee on a regular basis and on time. Protections rackets can vary in terms of their levels of sophistication or organization; it is not uncommon for their operations to emulate the structures or methods used by tax authorities within legitimate governments to collect taxes from taxpayers.
Forensic accounting, forensic accountancy or financial forensics is the specialty practice area of accounting that investigates whether firms engage in financial reporting misconduct, or financial misconduct within the workplace by employees, officers or directors of the organization. Forensic accountants apply a range of skills and methods to determine whether there has been financial misconduct by the firm or its employees.
Racketeering is a type of organized crime in which the perpetrators set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordinated scheme or operation to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit. The term "racketeering" was coined by the Employers' Association of Chicago in June 1927 in a statement about the influence of organized crime in the Teamsters Union. Specifically, a racket was defined by this coinage as being a service that calls forth its own demand, and would not have been needed otherwise. Narrowly, it means coercive or fraudulent business practices; broadly, it can mean any criminal scheme or operation with ongoing or reoccurring profit, as defined in the 1970 U.S. RICO Act, which aimed to curtail the power of the Mafia and other organized crime.
Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a deceptive practice in the stock or commodities markets that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information. The setups are generally made to result in monetary gain for the deceivers, and generally result in unfair monetary losses for the investors. They are generally violating securities laws.
The Richardson Gang was an English crime gang based in South London, England in the 1960s. Also known as the "Torture Gang", they had a reputation as some of London's most sadistic gangsters. Their alleged specialties included pulling teeth out using pliers, cutting off toes using bolt cutters and nailing victims to floors using 6-inch nails.
Overend, Gurney & Company was a London wholesale discount bank, known as "the bankers' bank", which collapsed in 1866 owing about £11 million, equivalent to £1,287 million in 2023. The collapse of the institution triggered a banking panic.
Jack McVitie, best known as Jack the Hat, was an English criminal from London during the 1950s and 1960s. He is posthumously famous for triggering the imprisonment and downfall of the Kray twins. He had acted as an enforcer and hitman with links to The Firm, and was murdered by Reggie Kray in 1967.
In economics, competition is a scenario where different economic firms are in contention to obtain goods that are limited by varying the elements of the marketing mix: price, product, promotion and place. In classical economic thought, competition causes commercial firms to develop new products, services and technologies, which would give consumers greater selection and better products. The greater the selection of a good is in the market, the lower prices for the products typically are, compared to what the price would be if there was no competition (monopoly) or little competition (oligopoly).
Financial crime is crime committed against property, involving the unlawful conversion of the ownership of property to one's own personal use and benefit. Financial crimes may involve fraud ; theft; scams or confidence tricks; tax evasion; bribery; sedition; embezzlement; identity theft; money laundering; and forgery and counterfeiting, including the production of counterfeit money and consumer goods.
Freddie Foreman is an English publican, gangster, former associate of the Kray twins and convicted criminal.
British firms are organised crime groups originating in the United Kingdom.
Legend is a 2015 biographical drama film written and directed by Brian Helgeland, adapted from John Pearson's book The Profession of Violence: The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins. The film follows the Kray twins' career and relationship together through their life imprisonment in 1969.
David Charles Hunt is an English suspected organised crime boss linked to violence, fraud, prostitution, money laundering and murder. He heads a gang dubbed 'The Hunt Syndicate', which has been described as being an extensive criminal empire that has so far evaded significant penetration from law enforcement. Hunt is known in gangland circles as Long Fella due to his height of 6 ft 5 inches. In a confidential police report from the early 2000s which was later leaked online, Hunt's gang was said to include family members and the father of well-known reality TV star Mark Wright.
Shirley Sally Pitts, later Shirley Sally Hawkins, was an English fraudster and thief known as the "queen of shoplifters". Born into poverty and crime, she began to steal as a child to feed her siblings. She was educated in shoplifting by the Forty Elephants, also known as the Forty Thieves, and later diversified into other non-violent crime such as fraud.