According to United Nations, corruption is a systemic and adaptive phenomenon that requires comprehensive and multidisciplinary approaches for its effective prevention and combat. However, traditional approaches lack the analytical tools to handle the structural and dynamical aspects that characterize modern social, political and technological systems where corruption takes place. On this matter, complex systems science has emerged as a comprehensive framework to study highly adaptive phenomena from natural to socio-technical settings. Thus, in this article we present an empirical approach to model corruption using the concepts and tools of complexity science, mainly, complex networks science. Under this framework, we describe a major corruption scandal that took place in Mexico involving a network of hundreds of shell companies used to embezzle billions of dollars. We describe the structure and dynamics of this corporate network using available information related to their personnel and the date of the companies’ creation. We measured some global parameters, such as density, diameter, average path length, and average degree in order to provide systematic evidence on which corporate characteristics are likely to signal corruption. Moreover, this analysis also provides an objective perspective of the systemic nature of events where companies are abused for corrupt purposes, and the shortcomings of reductionistic analyses. Major corruption scandals comprise both legal and illegal deeds, in addition to several parties acting simultaneously over extended time periods. As a whole, such scandals pose enormous challenges for the study of law and put the legal design of administrative and criminal controls to the test.

联合国认为，腐败是一种系统性和适应性现象，需要采取综合和多学科的方法来有效地预防和打击腐败。但是，传统方法缺乏分析工具来处理结构和动态方面，而结构和动态方面是发生腐败的现代社会，政治和技术系统的特征。在此问题上，复杂的系统科学已成为研究自然环境到社会技术环境的高度适应性现象的综合框架。因此，在本文中，我们介绍了一种使用复杂性科学（主要是复杂网络科学）的概念和工具对腐败建模的经验方法。在这个框架下 我们描述了在墨西哥发生的一次重大腐败丑闻，涉及数百家曾经盗用数十亿美元的空壳公司网络。我们使用与其人员和公司成立日期相关的可用信息来描述此公司网络的结构和动态。我们测量了一些全局参数，例如密度，直径，平均路径长度和平均程度，以提供系统的证据证明哪些公司特征可能表明腐败。此外，该分析还提供了客观的视角，说明了公司出于腐败目的而被滥用的事件的系统性，以及简化分析的缺点。重大腐败丑闻既有合法行为，也有非法行为，除了在延长的时间段内同时采取行动的各方。总体而言，此类丑闻给法律研究带来了巨大挑战，并使行政和刑事控制的法律设计受到考验。