Page 532 - ACFE Fraud Reports 2009_2020

Perpetrators

We asked participants to provide information about the Perpetrator’s Position
fraudsters they investigated, including factors related to Since the first edition of the report in 1996, the perpetra-
the perpetrator’s employment (level of authority, depart- tor’s level of authority has been strongly correlated with
ment, and tenure at the victim organization) and general the size of the fraud, and that was true again in our 2016
demographic information (age, gender, and education data. Only 18.9% of frauds in our current study were
level). We also compared cases with single perpetrators committed by owners/executives, but the median loss
10
to those involving collusion among two or more people. in these cases was $703,000. Employees and managers
were much more likely to commit occupational fraud, but
Finally, we asked respondents to tell us about various be-
as Figure 65 shows, the losses in these schemes were
havioral red flags and prior misconduct that might have
much lower—though still substantial. The correlation
been warning signs of fraudulent conduct.
between authority and loss most likely occurs because
high-level fraudsters tend to have greater access to their
10 In cases where more than one fraudster was involved, the data on perpetrators relates to the organizations’ assets than lower-level employees, as well
principal perpetrator, which we defined as the person who worked for the victim organization
and who was the primary culprit. as a better ability to evade or override anti-fraud controls.

48 REPORT TO THE NATIONS ON OCCUPATIONAL FRAUD AND ABUSE