Abstract
According to United Nations, corruption is a systemic and adaptive phenomenon that requires comprehensive and multidisciplinary approaches for its effective prevention and combat. However, traditional approaches lack the analytical tools to handle the structural and dynamical aspects that characterize modern social, political and technological systems where corruption takes place. On this matter, complex systems science has emerged as a comprehensive framework to study highly adaptive phenomena from natural to socio-technical settings. Thus, in this article we present an empirical approach to model corruption using the concepts and tools of complexity science, mainly, complex networks science. Under this framework, we describe a major corruption scandal that took place in Mexico involving a network of hundreds of shell companies used to embezzle billions of dollars. We describe the structure and dynamics of this corporate network using available information related to their personnel and the date of the companies’ creation. We measured some global parameters, such as density, diameter, average path length, and average degree in order to provide systematic evidence on which corporate characteristics are likely to signal corruption. Moreover, this analysis also provides an objective perspective of the systemic nature of events where companies are abused for corrupt purposes, and the shortcomings of reductionistic analyses. Major corruption scandals comprise both legal and illegal deeds, in addition to several parties acting simultaneously over extended time periods. As a whole, such scandals pose enormous challenges for the study of law and put the legal design of administrative and criminal controls to the test.
Highlights
According to United Nations, corruption is a systemic and adaptive phenomenon that requires comprehensive and multidisciplinary approaches for its effective prevention and combat
We describe a major corruption scandal that took place in Veracruz, Mexico, between 2010 and 2016, involving a complex network of hundreds of shell companies used to embezzle billions of dollars, originally destined to diverse social programs (Animal Político, 2016)
Conclusions & remarks In this article, we presented empirical evidence of a grand corruption scandal in Mexico that provides a glimpse into the complexity of events where companies are abused for corrupt practices
Summary
According to United Nations, corruption is a systemic and adaptive phenomenon that requires comprehensive and multidisciplinary approaches for its effective prevention and combat. Traditional approaches lack the analytical tools to handle the structural and dynamical aspects that characterize modern social, political and technological systems where corruption takes place. On this matter, complex systems science has emerged as a comprehensive framework to study highly adaptive phenomena from natural to socio-technical settings. We measured some global parameters, such as density, diameter, average path length, and average degree in order to provide systematic evidence on which corporate characteristics are likely to signal corruption This analysis provides an objective perspective of the systemic nature of events where companies are abused for corrupt purposes, and the shortcomings of reductionistic analyses. Corruption produces a complex, ubiquitous and many-faceted threat to the common interests of all societies that allows for enormous systemic risks in different sectors, form local to global levels (Helbing, 2013)
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