crookery

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)The activities of crooks; crime.

   “It was always intriguing to hear about some new form of crookery or deception.”

   “But this is small time crookery to the real manipulators and deceivers.”

   “What the people never knew at the time was the scale and audacity of the crookeries of Harding's advisers. In 1923 the Senate investigated 'irregularities' in the Veterans' Bureau. It had been defrauded of tidy sums by its chief […]”