CHANGE/MAKE something DIFFERENTto dishonestly change official records and figures in order to steal money or give people false information 做假账;篡改资料
The Government was cooking the books and misleading the public.
政府在篡改数据误导公众。
Examples from the Corpus
cook the books• Officials at the bank were found to have cooked the books.• We've just found out Alec's been cooking the books.• One solution would be to make the cities more habitable, but a much more sure-fire way is cooking the books.• The directors of the company made millions from cooking the books before the fraudinvestigatorscaught them.• Martin I hate to disturb you when you're cooking the books, but there's a delivery.• When it came to cooking the books, Dennis was in the Raymond Blanc class.• Lost himself in a welter of ambitions, unsafebuildings, cheapermaterials; he cooked the books to make more blocks.