Benefit fraud is believed to cost the country £0.8 billion per year. 3000 benefit fraud officers are employed to tackle this problem.
White collar fraud eg insider dealing, bribes, expenses fiddling is believed to cost the country £13 billion per year. The Financial Services Authority has had 1 successful prosecution in 10 years.
If you add in breaches of health and safety, environmental legislation then the social cost is even greater. Yet there are all kinds of ways in which such crimes are never reported, let alone punished. Many white collar institutions are self regulating, and so will seek to maintain respectability by hiding such activities. Commercial companies may fear loss of market confidence.
Endowments were heavily promoted and sold at a time when it was looking increasingly unlikely that they would produce the benefits being marketed. When public complaints began to surge, the Financial Services Authority produced public information leaflets that aimed to calm fears and preserve confidence. This had the intended effect of reducing complaints, and a compensation scheme is now in place. However, no one has ever been charged for committing a crime.