The First Financial Fraud

Fraud can be a noun or a verb and if you do something fraudulently, then it is an adverb.  There will always be unscrupulous people around looking for ways to exploit others.  Perhaps the earliest recorded case of fraud in the Western world was that of Hegestratos and Xenothemis in 300 B.C.  A Greek merchant named Hegestratos took out an insurance policy on a boat for a large sum, with the deliberate intention of sinking it.  At this time, it was known as bottomry and not referred to as insurance, and a bottomry bond, is a contract where a shipowner provides his or her ship as security for a loan to finance a voyage or for a certain period of time.  Hegestratos secured a bottomry to cover the value of his boat in case it was to sink during the voyage between Syracuse (modern-day Sicily) and Athens, Greece.  If the ship successfully completed the voyage…