ECONOMIC CRIME: A THREAT TO SOCIETY, COMPANIES AND MANAGEMENT

Abstract

In addition to numerous international and national criminal and preventive acts and regulations, strict prohibited sanctions, despite the defined business norms, the economy as an activity by which they are acquired and acquired, and disposes of numerous assets, including material ones, is unfortunately not exempt from criminal offenses in which individuals or groups, they want to gain an extraneous benefit. We classify these crimes in the group of economic crimes, and damages from them are caused in private companies, public companies and state and local administration, and the perpetrators can come from among employees or from outside business entities, and a special problem is internationalization and globalization, which this criminal makes the works even more complex. In addition to measurable damage in amounts, these criminal acts are also a danger to the community because they disrupt the system and values. Due to the large amounts of damage to the budget of the European Union, it established a separate prosecutor’s office – EPPO. In the introduction, the paper defines what criminal acts of economic crime are, their problems, and briefly their causes and consequences at the EU level. The search methodology for sources uses the legal acquis of the EU and the legislation of the Republic of Croatia, which define the legal framework for the fight against economic crime. Then, based on the indicators of the Ministry of the Interior, an analysis of the trend of economic crime for the level of the Republic of Croatia is made. In the period from 2013 to 2022, the largest number of these criminal offenses was recorded in 2016, (7111), and observed in the period from 2019 to 2022, there is an increase in the number of these criminal offenses (2019-4137, 2022 -4956), while the most common criminal offenses are Forgery of official or business documents, Abuse of position and authority, etc. In addition to individual criminal offenses, organized groups, internationalization, and the level of perpetrators and their social position are a big problem. The establishment of the European Prosecutor’s Office therefore proved to be justified both in other countries and for the territory of the Republic of Croatia. Namely, numerous damages were prevented by the action of this institution. Based on the research and the author’s personal experiences, recommendations are given for the prevention and suppression of these crimes, which should have a broad social framework. Even with just one criminal act, it is possible to threaten the survival of the company and numerous employees, which managers must keep in mind. In addition to the scope for other research, this points to the consideration of the necessary education and training of management and economics students on the prevention of these criminal acts, as a common good.