A criminal who has "cooked the books" has engaged in what kind of illegal behavior?

The story behind the answer

“Cooking the books” means falsifying financial records—accounting fraud. It involves manipulating ledgers to inflate profits, hide losses or debt, or misstate assets and liabilities to deceive investors, regulators, or tax authorities. By contrast, extortion and blackmail coerce someone for money or favors, and money laundering disguises the origins of illicit funds—none require altering company accounts.

The phrase “cook” here means to tamper with a recipe—mixing numbers to serve a misleading dish. Famous scandals like Enron and WorldCom used tricks such as off–balance sheet entities, leading to reforms like the Sarbanes–Oxley Act. Memory tip: imagine a chef sprinkling “extra revenue” and whisking away “debts” into the company’s books—if the numbers are cooked, it’s accounting fraud.