When we refer to fraud, we refer to the deliberate will to commit a crime knowing that it is illegal or that we can commit an act as such. In legal acts, fraud implies the malicious will to deceive someone or breach an obligation that has been contracted with another party.
However, depending on the area in which we move, the term will have different meanings, so we cannot define a specific or fixed one. In the field of economics, for example, fiscal fraud supposes an act of fraud.
In law, for its part, there are several meanings depending on the field in which it is located. In criminal law, intent means intent to commit a typical action that is prohibited by law. In civil law it refers to the essential characteristic of the civil offense, in the breach of the obligations it designates a deliberate non-execution by the debtor and, finally, it is a vice of voluntary acts.
Elements that make up the fraud
As for the elements that the fraud contains, we can designate the following two:
- Cognitive (or intellectual) element. It occurs in the subject's conscious internality, as it happens in his mind, and thus his environment is already known. The person himself knows that the actions he is taking are not right and that they go against morals or illegal acts that should not be taken.
- Volitional element. It is in the realm of the wishes of the person doing it. They are motivated by stimuli originated in human contingency needs, where there is the will to want to carry out said action and trigger the causal process or accept said alteration (avoiding that it can be interrupted).
Through the cognitive and volitional element, the subject directs his will towards what he wants, causing the action or result of the action that has been manifested.