The system's rigged — or is it?

From the beginning of the Seventies until almost the end of the Eighties, the Public Prosecution Service in the Netherlands concentrated a major part of its resources on combatting white collar and corporate crime. This effort climaxes in a number of spectacular fraud trials, involving in one case the directors of a large commercial bank, in another high-ranking public officials. Almost all were acquitted. As dramatically as interest in white collar and corporate crime had increased, so too did it decline at the end of the Eighties, until by now public interest in fraud is primarily concerned with social security frauds at one end of the scale, and money laundering by organised crime at the other. This article examines the rise and fall of the fraud-issue in Holland, the parts played by the Public Prosecution Service and the media, and the structural (economic and social) limitations to the criminalisation of white collar and corporate behaviour.