Either financial fraud is less common than it was five, ten, and twenty years ago, or it’s dropped in importance on the long list of priorities for federal prosecutors. That’s according to a report released this week by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. According to federal data, criminal prosecutions for financial fraud continue to drop, despite the mortgage and financial crises of the past several years. According to the report, “ during the first eleven months of FY 2011 the government reported 1,251 new prosecutions were filed. If this activity continues at the same pace, the annual total of prosecutions will be 1,365 for this fiscal year, down 28.6 percent from their numbers of just five years ago and less than half the level prevalent a decade ago.”
