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.

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.