Page 460 - ACFE Fraud Reports 2009_2020

Sorting departments based on median loss shows that the largest frauds are committed by executives and upper
management (see Figure 67). This is not surprising because this group tends to have the highest authority
within an organization. Among the seven departments that each accounted for at least 5% of cases, the finance
department caused the second-highest median loss, followed by purchasing, accounting, operations, sales and
customer service.

Figure 67: Department of Perpetrator (Sorted by Median Loss)

Department Number of Cases Percentage Median Loss
Executive/Upper Management 156 11.8% $680,000
Board of Directors 13 1.0% $500,000
Finance 69 5.2% $500,000
Warehousing/Inventory 52 3.9% $245,000
Purchasing 95 7.2% $166,000
Marketing/Public Relations 17 1.3% $160,000
Manufacturing and Production 33 2.5% $150,000
Accounting 230 17.4% $150,000
Other 105 7.9% $100,000
Operations 203 15.3% $100,000
Human Resources 16 1.2% $94,000
Sales 166 12.5% $80,000
Customer Service 102 7.7% $54,000
Research and Development 13 1.0% $50,000
Information Technology 40 3.0% $50,000
Legal 8 0.6% $44,000
Internal Audit 7 0.5% $25,000

56 REPORT TO THE NATIONS ON OCCUPATIONAL FRAUD AND ABUSE