Page 450 - ACFE Fraud Reports 2009_2020

The Impact of Collusion
More than half of the frauds in our study were committed by a single perpetrator, but when two or more individ-
uals conspired to commit an occupational fraud, losses rose dramatically (see Figure 53). When employees collude
in a fraud scheme, they can subvert the system of independent checks that might otherwise catch a fraudulent
transaction, thus enabling them to steal larger amounts. Furthermore, in a scheme involving multiple perpetrators,
there are more individuals expecting a payout, which might also help explain why multiple-perpetrator frauds
tend to involve greater losses. Interestingly, we found no correlation between the number of perpetrators and the
duration of schemes; frauds with multiple perpetrators did not tend to last any longer than single-perpetrator
frauds, even though they caused much larger losses.

Figure 53: Number of Perpetrators — Frequency and Median Loss

$600,000 60%
54.9% $550,000

$500,000
$500,000 50%

$400,000 $355,000 40%
MEDIAN LOSS $300,000 30% PERCENT OF CASES

$200,000
$200,000 20%
17.2% 13.1%
9.6%
$100,000 $80,000 10%
5.2%

58.0% 43.0% 45.1%
$0 0%
One Two Three Four Five or more
NUMBER OF PERPETRATORS Percent of Cases

46 REPORT TO THE NATIONS ON OCCUPATIONAL FRAUD AND ABUSE