Page 169 - ACFE Fraud Reports 2009_2020

Prosecution Rates Based on Industry Prosecution Rates Based on Industry

The following table shows the percentage of cases in each Industry Cases % Cases
industry in which frauds were referred for prosecution. Mining 1 100.0%
Excluding the mining industry, which had only one case, Wholesale Trade 30 82.1%
we see that wholesale trade, banking and financial services,
and general service industries were most likely to prose- Banking/Financial Services 148 80.7%
cute. Over 80% of the cases in each industry were referred Service (general) 60 80.7%
to law enforcement authorities. On the other end of the Transportation and 27 78.3%
spectrum, less than half of the 101 cases in the manufac- Warehousing
turing industry were referred for prosecution. Utilities 34 78.1%
Government and Public 119 77.8%
Why do Organizations Decide Administration
Not to Prosecute? Insurance 78 74.7%
Education 73 73.5%
There were 315 cases in which the victim organization Agriculture, Forestry, 8 71.4%
decided not to refer the case to law enforcement. We pro- Fishing and Hunting
vided our respondents with a list of possible reasons why Healthcare 89 70.2%
an organization might decline to seek prosecution of an oc- Service (professional, 58 69.6%
cupational fraud; each respondent was asked to select any scientific or technical)
of the options that applied in their case.
Real Estate 30 69.0%
The following chart illustrates the most common reasons Construction 35 66.7%
why organizations declined to prosecute. The most com- Communications/Publishing 16 66.7%
monly cited reason was fear of bad publicity. The fact that Retail 75 66.2%
a private settlement was reached, and the fact that the or- Arts, Entertainment and 22 63.6%
ganization considered its internal discipline to be sufficient Recreation
were also both cited in over 30% of the non-referred cases. Oil & Gas 32 58.6%
Manufacturing 101 48.9%

Reasons for Declining to Prosecute 14

Fear of Bad Publicity 43.8%
33.1%
Internal Discipline Sufficient 30.4%
Reason Given Private Settlement 13.1% 21.5%
Too Costly
Lack of Evidence
Civil Suit 5.8%
Perp Disappeared 0.8%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
Percent of Cases

14 The sum of percentages in this chart exceeds 100% because some respondents cited more than one reason why victim organizations declined to prosecute.

ACFE Report to the Nation on Occupational Fraud & Abuse