Long firm

A long firm is a trading company set up for fraudulent purposes; the basic operation is to run the company as an apparently legitimate business, gradually extending the amount of cash advances from customers at the same time

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as increasing the amount of credit from suppliers; when the pot is large enough, the perpetrators decamp with customers' money and suppliers' goods. The procedure needs a certain amount of money to set up, often the proceeds from another crime or a previous long firm.

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The Long Firm is a novel by Jake Arnott which describes a criminal's career; the title comes from the protagonist's first venture being a long firm.

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