Page 284 - ACFE Fraud Reports 2009_2020

Victim organizations

Anti-Fraud Controls by Region
To examine how organizations in different regions approached the fight against fraud, we analyzed the presence of
controls in victim organizations based on where they were located. The following tables illustrate the percentage of
organizations within each region that had the corresponding control in place at the time of the fraud.

It is interesting to note the variations in use of controls by region. Specifically, for some anti-fraud controls, the propor-
tion of victim organizations utilizing the control was markedly greater in regions containing developing countries than in
those regions primarily made up of developed nations. For example, the organizations in Central/South America and the
Caribbean had the highest rate of external audits of both financial statements and internal controls over financial report-

ing, as well as of hotlines. Similarly, codes of conduct, internal audit or fraud examination departments, management
certification of financial statements, independent audit committees, anti-fraud policies and rewards for whistleblowers
were all most common among the African organizations in our study, and management review, surprise audits and job
rotation or mandatory vacation policies were most often implemented by Asian organizations. On the opposite end of
the spectrum, the United States had the lowest rate of presence for several of these controls.

External Audit of Financial Statements code of conduct
Region percent of Cases Region percent of Cases
Central/South America and the Caribbean 87.1% Africa 80.4%
Europe 86.0% Central/South America and the Caribbean 74.3%
Africa 85.7% Europe 73.9%
Asia 83.9% Canada 73.7%
Canada 80.8% Oceania 72.5%
Oceania 75.0% Asia 68.5%
United States 70.4% United States 68.0%

Internal Audit/Fraud Examination department External Audit of IcOFR 16

Region percent of Cases Region percent of Cases
Africa 84.8% Central/South America and the Caribbean 65.7%
Europe 76.4% Asia 64.4%
Asia 73.2% Africa 64.3%
Central/South America and the Caribbean 72.9% United States 58.2%
Canada 61.6% Canada 57.6%
United States 60.9% Europe 56.7%
Oceania 50.0% Oceania 52.5%

16 External Audit of ICOFR = Independent audits of the organization’s internal controls
over financial reporting.

40 | 2010 RepoRt to the NAtioNs ON OccuPATIONAl FRAUD ANd AbuSE