Accounting fraud is a serious form of white-collar crime where corporate executives engage in deceptive practices to misrepresent a company's financial health and performance.

The podcast episodes on the Enron scandal (The Enron Scandal Pt. 1) and the Chinese property bubble (The Big Short: China Edition) both provide examples of how accounting fraud was central to these major corporate collapses.

In the case of Enron, the company's executives used complex accounting maneuvers and off-the-books entities to hide massive losses and inflate profits, leading to the company's downfall. Similarly, Chinese developers like Evergrande were found to have engaged in fraudulent accounting practices to overstate their financial position and obscure underlying issues.