Fraud versus manipulation by white-collar criminals: an empirical study

This article addresses the following research question: What differences might be found between white-collar criminals conducting fraud versus white-collar criminals involved in other kinds of financial crime? This research is important, as studies of white-collar criminals so far has focused on case studies rather than statistical analysis of a larger sample. Based on articles in Norwegian financial newspapers for one year, a total of 57 white-collar criminals convicted to jail sentence were identified. The average age of the convicted persons was 51 years. 54 out of 57 criminals were men. The average sentence was three years imprisonment. While no differences between fraud cases and non-fraud cases were found to be statistically different in this study, imprisonment for white-collar fraud cases was a longer jail sentence, fraud cases were associated with white-collar criminals with lower official persona income, and a greater number of persons were involved in each fraud case.