We also have a criminal court system to handle stuff like this.

No we don't. I've never seen a private contract dispute go to criminal court, probably because it's a civil matter.

If they actually committed theft, well then that already is illegal too.

But right now, doing "shitty research" isn't illegal and it's unlikely it ever will be.

	▲	wat10000 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The claim is that this would qualify as fraud, which is also illegal. If you do a search for "contractor imprisoned for fraud" you'll find plenty of cases where a private contract dispute resulted in criminal convictions for people who took money and then didn't do the work. I don't know if taking money and then merely pretending to do the research would rise to the level of criminal fraud, but it doesn't seem completely outlandish.