Fraud
It is a deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain. As a legal construct, fraud is both a civil wrong (i.e., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud and/or recover monetary compensation) and a criminal wrong (i.e., a fraud perpetrator may be prosecuted and imprisoned by governmental authorities). Defrauding people or organizations of money or valuables is the usual purpose of fraud, but it sometimes instead involves obtaining benefits without actually depriving anyone of money or valuables, such as obtaining a drivers license by way of false statements made in an application for the same.
As a civil wrong
As a civil wrong, fraud is referred to as a tort. The precise definitions and requirements of proofs vary depending of de jurisdiccions, the requisite elements of fraud as a tort generally are the intentional misrepresentation or concealment of an important fact upon which the victim is meant to rely, and in fact does rely, to the harm of the victim. to provide a fraud in a court is quite difficult, hat difficulty is found, for instance, in that each and every one of the elements of fraud must be proven, that the elements include proving the states of mind of the perpetrator and the victim, and that some jurisdictions require the victim to prove fraud with so-called clear and convincing evidence.
The remedies for fraud may include rescission of a fraudulently obtained agreement or transaction, the recovery of a monetary award to compensate for the harm caused, punitive damages to punish or deter the misconduct, and possibly others.
In cases of a fraudulently induced contract, fraud may serve as a defense in a civil action for breach of contract or specific performance of contract.
Fraud may serve as a basis for a court to invoke its equitable jurisdiction.
As a criminal offence
In common law jurisdictions, as a criminal offence, fraud takes many different forms, some general (e.g., theft by false pretense) and some specific to particular categories of victims or misconduct (e.g., bank fraud, insurance fraud, forgery). The elements of fraud as a crime similarly vary. The requisite elements of perhaps most general form of criminal fraud, theft by false pretense, are the intentional deception of a victim by false representation or pretense with the intent of persuading the victim to part with property and with the victim parting with property in reliance on the representation or pretense and with the perpetrator intending to keep the property from the victim.
Swindle, scam
The crime of swindle is described as an act of damage on the property or the assets of another person. In general, crimes of fraud are considered less serious than others (such as murder or sexual abuse), but the variety of types of scam makes it possible to perform such a level of harm to others that the penalties are extremely high for the criminal.
The Spanish law regulates the possibility of scams become constitutive of offense or lack, according to the more or less serious value of the cheated. I.e., should take into account failures in general just are punished when they are completed and have a harmful outcome. In addition, failures are judged by the coroner and crime by the criminal judge.
When is a crime of swindle committed?
A person commits a swindle crime when, with the intention of obtaining a benefit, it uses a trick to delude another person and gets something that causes an economic damage.
The swindle crime is punishable with imprisonment from 6 months to 4 years, provided that the swindeled amount exceed the 400€.
To state the penalty, it will be taken into account the circumstances which serve to estimate the seriousness of the crime such as the economic harm that the crime has made to the victim,...
However in the most serious cases of fraud, there are a number of circumstances which, because of their seriousness can bring the imposition of a penalty of imprisonment from 1 to 6 years and a fine of 6 to 12 months.
Those circunstances are:
- The damage caused by the crime of swindle involves things of first need (housing or other recognized social utility).
- The swindle is made simulating a lawsuit or by using any other procedural fraud.
- The swindle is done using a bill of exchange, bank cheque, or note.
- The swindle is made using the signature of another person.
Moreover, the imprisonment from 1 to 4 years will be applied to the person who is involved in the following cases:
- If he or she pretending to be the owner of an asset and sells it or rents it.
- The person who sells something hidding penalties against the selling thing.
