Economic crime report 2004 - Ekobrottsmyndigheten

In response to an April 2002 assignment from the Swedish Economic
Crimes Council, EBM used the model as the basis for putting together a
threat analysis on economic crime, which it submitted in May 2003.
The model proceeds from various types of offences. The analysis refined
the concept of motivated offender to a more neutral examination of
human motives, i.e., people’s goals and their perception of the best way
to attain them. Thus, the analysis examined how different crime opportunity
and monitoring variables affect the development of people’s motives
such that they commit economic offences.
In addition to opportunity and monitoring, EBM added another group
of causal variables to its model: social values, norms and attitudes that
affect whether or not a person commits a crime.
The report maintained that crime opportunity variables are describable
on the basis of different classifying principles. One fundamental classification
regarded as useful proceeded from the kinds of people who fall
victim to economic offences. The victim can be said to have offered the
opportunity for the commission of crime. That in turn can happen in
many different ways. Thus, a breakdown of the opportunity variables
may include classifying principles in addition to the focus on the victims
themselves.
Monitoring refers primarily to various actions by government agencies,
but may also include those by unions and trade associations. Although
the emphasis is on the ten agencies that cooperate in the fight against
economic crime, the Social Insurance Office, the Consumer Ombudsman,
the Swedish Consumer Agency and others can have a role to play
as well.
Socioeconomic, political, and technological developments all affect the
evolution of human motives with respect to economic crime. The impact
may be either direct, or indirect by way of the model’s other groups of
variables. One such development was the transition to the euro.
The direct, immediate harm caused by an economic offence can be measured
in the amount of money taken from the victim. Among the indirect
or far-reaching effects are:
• the unreasonably large percentage of investigative resources that
some economic offences tie up
• sabotage of income distribution policies
• financial losses suffered by lenders, suppliers and the like
• greater exodus of capital, reduced GDP
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