From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishperpetratorper‧pe‧tra‧tor /ˈpɜːpətreɪtə $ ˈpɜːrpətreɪtər/ noun [countable] formal someone who does something morally wrong or illegal → culprit The perpetrators were never caught.perpetrator of The perpetrators of racially motivated violence must be punished.
Examples from the Corpus
perpetrator• We know about black people as victims, but not about white people as perpetrators of crimes against black people.• Already the police were pulling imagined perpetrators from among them.• They are the perpetrators of futility.• Whatever may have happened, it was treated as an act of war and in these circumstances the perpetrators forfeited all rights.• She knew what had happened but she had completely forgotten the details - including the description of the perpetrator.• A deed planned in cold blood may appear very different to the perpetrator if he ever gets round to carrying it out.• In 33 % of cases schoolteachers were the rapists, and in 25 % of cases relatives were the perpetrators.• The perpetrators of the coup would be imprisoned by the storm for the next twenty-four hours.perpetrator of• the perpetrator of a sex crime 