ABSTRACT
In recent years, several court cases in the Dutch Caribbean – Aruba, Curacao, St Maarten, Bonaire, Saba, and St Eustatius – have shown that public officials have been involved in fraud and corruption cases. At the same time hardly any empirical qualitative studies on the nature of public fraud and corruption exist. In this article an attempt is made to outline the prevalence of fraud and corruption in the Dutch Caribbean. Several cases on fraud and corruption committed by public officials will be presented and discussed. Furthermore, in this article I explore the impact of (post)-colonialism on the prevalence of fraud and corruption in the Dutch Caribbean. In so doing, I will examine whether the (post)-colonial characteristics as described in the literature are reflected in the studied cases.
