Page 167 - ACFE Fraud Reports 2009_2020

The Perpetrators’ Criminal Our data suggest that organizations should not rely too
Histories heavily on background checks as a preventative measure
for occupational fraud. While background checks may
Nearly two-thirds of the victim organizations routinely weed out the predatory employee, who seeks out employ-
conducted background checks on new employees at the ment with the goal of defrauding his or her employer, they
time their frauds occurred. Background checks were a will not catch the typical occupational fraudster who has
more common practice within these organizations than no prior criminal record.
internal audits, fraud hotlines, anti-fraud training or
surprise audits. Furthermore, when organizations do conduct background
checks, our findings suggest that those checks should not
While background checks can be a valuable anti-fraud be limited to criminal history checks. Other factors such
tool and should be conducted on new hires who will have as credit history and past job performance may be more
access to organizational assets, the vast majority of occu- predictive of whether an employee is likely to engage in
pational fraudsters in our study had never been charged or occupational fraud.
convicted of any fraud-related offense before committing
their crimes. This finding is consistent with other research
suggesting that most occupational fraudsters are not
career criminals.

Perpetrators’ Criminal Histories

4.4%

7.7%

87.9%

Charged But Not Convicted

Had Prior Convictions
Never Charged or Convicted

ACFE Report to the Nation on Occupational Fraud & Abuse