Literary frauds, manuscripts that are presented to the public as works of famous authors but that are actually forgeries or imitations. Literary frauds are perpetrated for various reasons—occa...

Frauds, Statute of, basis of most modern laws requiring that certain promises must be in writing in order to be enforceable; it was passed by the English Parliament in 1677. In the United Stat...

Yazoo land fraud, name given to the sale in 1795 by an act of the Georgia legislature of vast holdings in the Yazoo River country to four land companies following the wholesale bribery of the ...

Whistle-blowing, exposure of fraud and abuse by an employee. The federal law that legitimated the concept of the whistle-blower, the False Claims Act (1863, revised 1986), was created to comba...

Corrupt practices, in politics, fraud connected with elections. The term also refers to various offenses by public officials, including bribery, the sale of offices, granting of public contrac...

Denby, Edwin, 1870–1929, U.S. Secretary of the Navy (1921–24), b. Evansville, Ind. President Harding appointed him to the cabinet. In 1924 he was involved in the scandal about the oil reserves...

Fletcher v. Peck, case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1810, involving the Yazoo land fraud. The court ruled that an act of the Georgia legislature rescinding a land grant was unconstitut...

Zia ul-Haq, Mohammad, 1924–88, Pakistani military and political leader. Named general and chief of staff by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1976, he declared martial law in July, 1977, in response to a...

Identity theft, the use of one person's personal information by another to commit fraud or other crimes. The most common forms of identity theft occur when someone obtains another person's soc...

Vargas, Getúlio Dornelles, 1883–1954, Brazilian statesman, twice president (1930–45, 1951–54). The popular governor of Rio Grande do Sul (1928–30), he ran for the presidency in 1930, was defea...