Fraude

[Michael30000]

Hola a todos,

La frase en cuestión es del libro Tinta invisible de Javier Peña.

Dicen que Susan Sontag podía pasar, en cinco minutos, de pensar que era la mente más brillante de América a convencerse de que era un absoluto y completo fraude. A todos nos ha sucedido algo así en algún momento, tenemos días mejores y peores con nosotros mismos. La clave estriba en los cinco minutos de distancia entre ambos picos; ahí radica la principal diferencia: el ego del escritor viaja arriba y abajo a velocidades pasmosas.

What does "fraude" mean here?

According to the DRAE:

https://dle.rae.es/fraude?m=form

1. m. Acción contraria a la verdad y a la rectitud, que perjudica a la persona contra quien se comete.

Sin.:
fraudulencia, engaño, timo2, estafa1, trampa, defraudación, engañifa, embeleco, insidia, trapacería, asechanza.

2. m. Acto tendente a eludir una disposición legal en perjuicio del Estado o de terceros.

3. m. Der. Delito que comete el encargado de vigilar la ejecución de contratos públicos, o de algunos privados, confabulándose con la representación de los intereses opuestos.

So "fraude", according to the dictionary, doesn't mean a person who commits fraud.

Does the author use "fraude" to mean (in this context) a person who commits fraud?

Thank you.

[Rusty]

Yes, the author is applying the noun fraud to a person who commits fraud.
Whether the academy agrees with that usage, it appears to be nonetheless accepted.
I found a few examples online where someone wrote «eres fraude», which can only mean the term was being applied to a person.
Other dictionaries state that the word may be used for both the act and the person doing the act.

[Michael30000]

Thank you, Rusty!

[aleCcowaN]

Susan Sontag podía pasar, en cinco minutos, de pensar que era la mente más brillante de América a convencerse de que era un absoluto y completo fraude

In this context fraude exactly means she would experience impostor syndrome; someone that's pretending and a fake. No dolo* needed.

It's a widely spread use, and it's common to say "eres/sos un fraude" to someone who has deceived or deeply disapointed us by pretending to have abilities, contacts or resources they don't, whether or not there's been intention to harm us. What's important is the subjacent untrue nature and the detrimental efect it causes.

* dolo is the intention to cause harm that is esential to any criminal act. Fraude, sometimes more properly defraudación, is a delito, that is, a criminal act.

These are multi-layered concepts, as "Continental" law and rights are different from those in the Anglo-Saxon world. Something is a crime if it's expresedly described as a crime, si está tipificado. It's not enough for it to look criminal from an analytical point of view.

For instance, in Argentina for more than 75 years it wasn't a crime to plug oneself to the electric grid without paying a cent. All because stealing was defined as adquiring goods in an illegal fashion. But electricity is not "goods". Then our law expanded its definition from "goods" to "goods and other things having a monetary value" what opened the door to the prosecution of those stealing electricity, cable TV, etc.