Page 459 - ACFE Fraud Reports 2009_2020

Perpetrator’s Department
Figure 66 shows the departments that the fraud perpetrators worked in. There were seven departments that each
accounted for 5% or more of all cases: accounting, operations, sales, executive/upper management, customer
service, purchasing and finance. Collectively, these seven departments were responsible for approximately 77% of
all frauds in our study. The department with the greatest incidence of fraud was accounting, but the level of frauds
perpetrated by accounting personnel in our 2014 study (17%) was much lower than what we found in our two
previous Reports. However, this was the first study we’ve conducted in which frauds in the finance department
accounted for at least 5% of all cases.

Figure 66: Department of Perpetrator — Frequency

17.4%
Accounting 22.0%
22.0%
15.3%
Operations 17.4%
18.0%
12.5%
Sales 12.8%
13.5%
11.8%
Executive/Upper Management 11.9%
13.5%
7.9%
Other* 5.9%
7.7%
Customer Service 6.9%
7.2%
DEPARTMENT OF PERPETRATOR Warehousing/Inventory 3.7% 4.2% 5.2% 5.7%
7.2%
Purchasing
6.2%
Finance

3.9%

Information Technology 2.0% 3.0% 4.2% 4.7%
2.8%
2.5%
Manufacturing and Production 1.9%
1.7%
1.3%
Marketing/Public Relations 1.1%
2.0%
1.2%
Human Resources 1.2%
1.3%
1.0%
Board of Directors 1.4%
1.4%
1.0%
Research and Development 0.7%
0.8%
0.6%
Legal 0.6%
0.5% 2014
0.5% 2012
Internal Audit 0.6%
0.2% 2010
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

*”Other” category was not included in the 2010 Report. PERCENT OF CASES

REPORT TO THE NATIONS ON OCCUPATIONAL FRAUD AND ABUSE 55