Rather Fail with Honor Than Succeed by Fraud

‘Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud’

-Sophocles-

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1.1 Research Problem

Around 2500 years ago, Sophocles stated that he would rather act honorably and honestly while trying to achieve something, even if he would fail – than to act dishonestly and succeed. Subsequently, Neoptolemos manages to stand against the underhanded Odysseus and the rage of the Greek army. Sophocles requests the presence of a powerful God to help him prosper in obtaining his goal as well. Unfortunately, the ideology of such interventionist gods seems to be nonexistent and the heroic gems are even rarer to find .

Two and a half millennia later, today’s society seems to still be struggling with that choice of temptation in daily life as well as in matters of state. Based from sentiments of this quote, the following question arises: Can one still be honorable if their success is achieved from fraudulent acts?

Economic crime, in particular fraud continues to be a major issue in many companies and regions. One out of three organizations are affected by economic crime. The figure below displays the fluctuation in global fraud rates, but specifically points out the seven percent increase between 2009 and 2014.

Figure 1: Reported global fraud rates

Stories related to fraud are consistently being broadcasted throughout the media. For some people that means just being dishonest, but the scientists define it as:

‘A false representation of a matter of fact — whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or by concealment of what should have been disclosed—that deceives and is intended to deceive another so that the individual will act upon it to her or his legal injury.’

Fraud can be seen or developed as a type of criminal activity that includes abuse of position, or false representation, or prejudicing someone’s rights for personal gain. In more common words fraud can be called an act of deception intended for personal gain or to cause a loss to another party.

In this context it is crucial to be able to identify individuals who commit fraud. A fraudster is a person who is always finding new ways to trick people out of money by targeting them through emails, phone calls, letters, social media, etc. Internal fraudsters are one of the greatest threats that have an impact on a company and the typical fraudster profile is demonstrated by figure 2.

Figure 2: Fraudster Profile

Fraud and the battle behind it can be traced back to early writings. Frauds concept can be found in Greek Mythology where Apate, the epitome of deceit, perfidy, fraud, trickery,