Page 127 - ACFE Fraud Reports 2009_2020

How Non-Cash Assets are Misappropriated

There were 243 cases that involved the theft or misappropriation of non-cash assets. The majority of these schemes involved
the theft of inventory or other physical assets such as equipment and supplies. A smaller proportion targeted proprietary
information or securities, but these schemes had higher median losses. For instance, although there were only 16 cases in
our study involving the theft of securities, the median loss in these cases was $1.85 million.

Non-Cash Misappropriations
Cases % of Asset Median
Category Description Examples
Reported Mis. Cases Loss
Inventory Any scheme ¨ employee steals 172 16.6% $55,000
involving the theft or merchandise from
misappropriation of warehouse or sales floor.
physical, non-cash assets employee diverts incoming
such as inventory, ¨ shipments of inventory for
equipment or supplies.
personal use.
Information Any scheme in which an ¨ employee accesses 37 3.6% $78,000
employee steals or customer records for
otherwise misappro- purposes of committing
priates proprietary identity theft.
confidential information ¨ employee provides
or trade secrets.
company trade secrets to
a competitor.
Securities Any scheme involving ¨ employee fraudulently 16 1.5% $1,850,000
the theft or misappro- transfers stock held by
priation of stocks, bonds, company to personal
or other securities. account.

ACFE Report to the Nation on Occupational Fraud & Abuse 1