Page 377 - ACFE Fraud Reports 2009_2020

Perpetrator’s Tenure
We continue to see that tenure has a strong correlation with fraud losses. Individuals who have worked at an orga-
nization for a longer period of time will often enjoy more trust from their supervisors and co-workers, which can
mean less scrutiny over their actions. Their experience can also give them a better understanding of the organiza-
tion’s internal controls, which enables them to more successfully carry out and conceal their fraud schemes.

Approximately 42% of occupational fraudsters had between one and five years of tenure at their organizations.
Meanwhile fewer than 6% of perpetrators committed fraud within the first year on the job. Overall, the distribu-
tion of tenure was consistent with what we found in our two prior Reports.

Tenure of Perpetrator — Frequency

50%
45.7% 2012
45%
41.5% 40.5%
40%
2010
Percent of Cases 30% 27.2% 23.2% 25.3% 27.5% 2008
35%
25.4%
24.6%
25%
20%
15%
10% 5.9% 7.4%
5.7%
5%
0%
Less than 1 year 1 to 5 years 6 to 10 years More than 10 years
Tenure of Perpetrator

As noted above, occupational fraud losses tend to rise based on the length of time the perpetrator works for
the victim organization. Our current data shows that fraudsters with more than ten years of authority caused a
median loss of $229,000 (see chart on following page). This was more than double the median loss caused by
perpetrators who had been with the company for one to five years, and nearly ten times greater than the median
loss caused by fraudsters with less than one year of tenure. The correlation of fraud losses and tenure has been
a consistent finding in past Reports, although we note that losses were lower in 2012 across all tenure ranges
compared to our previous studies. 2012 REPORT TO THE NATIONS on occupational FRAUD and abuse |

49