The Alarming Rise of Financial Fraud: Unmasking the Celebration of Con Artists

Unlike in the past, people are now more suspicious about financial fraud and we try to run away from them as much as possible but then in our endeavour to avert being scammed, we now see everything as scam and because of this, financial fraud is in its highest.

It looks like the society celebrates con artists and although a lot of people would not agree with me, but the case of Sam Bakman Freed gives a very good illustration. Before the fraud, there were a lot of crypto influencers that celebrated the wealth and excess of the wolf of wallstreet who is another fraudster that stole people's millions and was convicted for it.

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There have been lots of writing by reporters such as Aaron Griffith of the New York Times, as well as other reporters who have written about hundreds of fake companies, with fake business plans, fake customers and so on just for the purpose of taking other people's money as wellas get the money of venture capital investment firms.

While some companies use the money gotten from venture capitalists properly, others would tell lies to keep getting more since they started lying about their incomes from the beginning and want to keep getting more investment. At first you begin to ask why these start ups lie and the answer is that most venture capital investment firms will not invest in companies that have small projections because in reality, they are only interested in making money and not the success of the company in the long run.

The VCs do not mind increasing the profit margin of the company or the growth of the company because they aim to sell their investments to other companies and corporation, or dump their holdings on the general public when it list on the market at an over priced value.

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Why these fraudulent companies increase is because there is no one to check and balance their data and check for authenticity. While legit and honest companies struggle to get investors and keep reality, these fraudulent companies get what they want easily. It is believed that the enforcement agencies around the world cannot completely regulate these markets as there is not enough resources to get this done and they rely on whistle blower to report manipulation, insider trading, and ponzi scheme. This is why companies like FTX, theranos, and Wework were able to make billions of dollars from investors that didn't do much of due deligence to verify before investing.

The celebration of con artists and the lax oversight of financial markets create an environment conducive to fraudulent activities. Heightened awareness, combined with more robust regulatory measures, is essential to safeguarding investors and maintaining the integrity of financial systems.