In the intricate world of finance, ‘control fraud’ emerges when those in the highest echelons of power within corporations, particularly in the banking sector, exploit their positions to profit from fraudulent activities – inflating revenues, manipulating reserves, falsifying asset values etc.
No matter how rigorous the investigations, political powers repeatedly fail to stop it. Corrupt government officials and financial institutions work hand in hand in a ‘don’t see, don’t tell’ culture.
Every debt-financed boom in the US land market since British settlement has been amplified through control fraud.
The term control fraud, was coined by William K Black.
In 2005, Black wrote a book titled: The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One.
It is the most comprehensive book ever written on the subject.
As Black demonstrates through the pages of his book - a single control fraud will cause greater losses than all other forms of property crime combined.
It produces bubbles that must collapse.
It’s also why, the crashes at the end of the cycle, and subsequent depressions are sometimes named after the accounting tool of choice - (Savings & Loans crisis, Sub-Prime Crisis.. etc)
Black gained fame for his involvement in the Savings & Loans crisis. It is the most notorious story of control fraud.
It was an era where depositors - mostly older Americans and naive investors with no knowledge of land cycles - lost their life savings investing in hometown thrifts that they thought were safe.
The savings and loan institutions (S&L) fuelled the massive land cycle into 1991.
In the runup, they grew a whopping four times the size of the banking industry. It was a rapid expansion that could not have happened without fraud at the base.
Charles Keating is the picture boy for that crisis.
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