Deceptive Practice in Chicago — Crime Statistics 2026
25,588 indexed reports · 6.0% of Chicago incidents · 0 arrests in recent sample.
What is deceptive practice in Chicago?
Deceptive practice covers crimes of fraud and deception — obtaining money or property through false pretenses, bad checks, credit card fraud, identity theft, and confidence games. Illinois law (720 ILCS 5/17-1) defines deceptive practices to include writing bogus checks and deceiving a victim to gain financial advantage; related statutes cover identity theft and computer fraud.
Chicago PD files these under deceptive-practice IUCR codes with descriptions like "fraud or confidence game," "financial identity theft," "credit card fraud," "bogus check," and "computer fraud." The traditional police term "bunco" — a swindle or confidence trick — lives in this category: modern bunco reports are classified as fraud or confidence game.
LocalCrimeVault has 25,588 deceptive practice reports indexed in Chicago — 6.0% of all tracked incidents. The most recent full month on record (June 2026) logged 586 reports, up from 91 in May 2026.
Latest reports
| Date | Offense | Arrest? | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 26, 2026 | Deceptive Practice | No | View → |
| Jun 25, 2026 | Deceptive Practice | No | View → |
| Jun 25, 2026 | Deceptive Practice | No | View → |
| Jun 25, 2026 | Deceptive Practice | No | View → |
| Jun 25, 2026 | Deceptive Practice | No | View → |
| Jun 25, 2026 | Deceptive Practice | No | View → |
| Jun 25, 2026 | Deceptive Practice | No | View → |
| Jun 25, 2026 | Deceptive Practice | No | View → |
| Jun 25, 2026 | Deceptive Practice | No | View → |
| Jun 25, 2026 | Deceptive Practice | No | View → |
Other offense types in Chicago
Top categories citywide: Theft (99,072), Battery (76,864), Criminal Damage (47,011).
How common is deceptive practice in Chicago?
Deceptive Practice accounts for 25,588 indexed police reports in Chicago (6.0% of tracked offenses). Data comes from City of Chicago Open Data — Crimes.
- How many deceptive practice incidents are in Chicago?
- LocalCrimeVault has 25,588 indexed deceptive practice reports in Chicago, sourced from City of Chicago Open Data — Crimes.
- What share of deceptive practice reports lead to arrest?
- In our most recent sample of 25 deceptive practice records, 0 (0.0%) include an arrest flag in the source data.
- How often is deceptive practice data updated?
- Chicago crime records sync nightly from the open-data portal. New reports appear on type and incident pages after the sync and deploy pipeline completes.
- What is bunco crime?
- Bunco is the traditional police term for a confidence game or swindle — tricking a victim into handing over money or valuables through deception, like fake lottery winnings, phony contractors, or street-corner cons. Many police departments once ran dedicated "bunco squads." In Chicago PD open data, bunco-style scams are classified as deceptive practice with the description "fraud or confidence game."
- Is identity theft a deceptive practice?
- Yes. Financial identity theft — using someone else’s personal information to obtain credit, money, or goods — is one of the most common deceptive-practice descriptions in Chicago crime data, split by whether the loss exceeds $300.