This blog is about people who steal other people’s money.

fraud:  n., an intentional perversion of truth for the purpose of inducing another in reliance upon it to part with some valuable thing belonging to him or to surrender a legal right.

From the sidewalk game of three card monte to the most complex and nefarious financial crimes, fraud materially affects every participant in the global economy.  It embraces ‘all the multifarious means which human ingenuity can devise…’

Whether or not you realize it, fraud has affected your life for better or for worse.  And, regretfully, unless you are engaged in the commission of fraud as a means of providing all or part of your livelihood, fraud has made you worse off–possibly much so.

The site’s dramatis personae run the gamut from common street thugs to sophisticated financial professionals, and in some cases, the attorneys who represent or otherwise associate with the aforementioned.

About the author:

Cuibono1 is an Attorney and an adjunct Professor of Criminal Justice in Charlotte, North Carolina.  While currently domiciled in the Tar Heel State, your humble correspondent is a graduate of the University of South Carolina School of Law, a Greenville, South Carolina native, and a regular apologist of the Palmetto State.

Scope of this Blog:

One of the goals of sinevitio will be to regularly provide content that is of interest to the South Carolina legal community.

Cuibono’s academic pursuits focus on the legal issues surrounding human beings’ perpetual efforts to enrich themselves at the expense of others.  Your author is an expert in the law of white collar crime, cybercrime, and fraud detection and prevention.

Purpose of this Blog:

NOT ANOTHER LEGAL BLOG….I know, I know.  Give it a chance.  The goal is for this site to become a legal blog that is a bit different from your run-of-the-mill law firm news bulletin.  In point of fact, the decision to create this blog came about largely as a result of what your correspondent sees as a woeful dearth of unbiased and insightful legal commentaryspecfically about the law of fraud.

This is due in part to the fact that most blogs that cover this issue are maintained by practicing attorneys.  While there is nothing inherently wrong with this, such content is necessarily limited in that the content is provided at least in part with the goal of soliciting clients, rather than the exclusive aim of disseminating ideas.

Your author is an academic rather than a practicing attorney.  Sinevitio will seek to provide a more diverse set of viewpoints. The goal of this site is simply to provide  timely, interesting, and informative content about fraud and the law in a manner that is accessible, intellectually honest, and valuable whether the reader is a lawyer, student, or simply concerned citizen.

Your comments are welcome and encouraged.

Follow the money!

Siemens Agrees to Massive $1.34 BN Penalty to Settle FCPA Corruption Charges

US and EU companies that conduct operations or solicit clients overseas should take note of several recent developments in the laws intended to combat fraud and corruption by US and EU companies.

In the last several months, there have been significant developments surrounding a little-known statute called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which is a law intended to punish corrupt activity engaged in by US companies that takes place outside the borders of the US.

A violation of the FCPA can occur when a person acting on behalf of a US company offers a bribe or kickback in order to obtain something of value, such as a government contract or favorable treatment among competitors.  Most importantly, in many cases a violation occurs even if that payment was legal under the laws of the country in which it was made.

Last year, Siemens AG agreed to pay a massive $1.3BN fine (that’s Billion with a B) to the Justice Department to settle allegations that its employees had paid bribes to a number of foreign governments in order to secure contracts ranging from a mass transit project in Venezuela to a cell phone contract with the government of Bangladesh.

US and EU companies now must closely scrutinize their policies and procedures regarding how  they conduct business overseas, especially if they do any business in lesser developed nations where bribery may be seen as a normal component of doing business.

It has been argued that such a law places US and EU companies at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to conducting business overseas, especially if they have competitors domiciled in a nation that has no such law.  Today, it is still the case that the US is the only nation to seriously enforce such legislation, but the EU is quickly following suit.  It is too early to tell whether pressure from the Obama administration on foreign governments to keep pace by adopting and enforcing similar laws is working, but one thing is for certain:  The Justice Department is committed to expanding the number of prosecutions and the severity of punishments under this previously unknown law.

Many legal commentators have complained of the highly technical nature of this statute.  They have also decried the statute’s sweeping breadth, as the FCPA prohibits not just clearly corrupt payments, but also criminalizes what many regard as innocuous conduct.  A literal reading of the statute would prohibit for example the paying a bribe to a Zimbabwean Customs Official for a smooth passage through customs, even though such a payment is legal and expected in Zimbabwe.

One thing is certain:  the increase in prosecutions and the serious penalties facing both management and employees means that US and EU companies who do any business overseas need to consult with knowledgeable sources in order to review and implement new policies to prevent violations of the FCPA.

Tony Trout is a cautionary tale for would-be amateur espionage artists, even ones who were in law enforcement before they were elected.  Mr. Trout is currently serving a year-long sentence in Federal Prison in West Virginia after he was found guilty of, among other things, installing spyware onto the computer of a fellow councilman in order to intercept his e-mails.

Once a wildly popular Republican known for his abrasive manner and confrontational style, Mr. Trout was seen as the “Taxpayer’s Watchdog,”  priding himself on jealously guarding our County tax dollars.  Mr. Trout made a few enemies along the way, and