Investigations of Financial Fraud

Abstract

Financial fraud is a broad description including all frauds or scams that consist of credit card scams, insurance frauds, money laundering, securities frauds, or income statement misinformation to name a few. Out of all these misconducts, this chapter discussed only securities fraud that consists of any manipulation strategy to make a profit, whether income statement or market manipulation. Various cases are analyzed to describe the impact of frauds, how people's lives changed, and how cognitive biases/behavior heuristics can identify potential fraud. In the literature review section, it is analyzed how researchers and analyst who implements cognitive psychology can detect red flags of the phenomenon. The main limitations were the lack of research about the impact on victims' lives, the impact of fraud on social structure, the psychology of the frauds, and the cognitive bias/heuristics that a fraudster shows. The study laid the foundation for further research studies because more research is required to fully analyze this complex topic.