Page 596 - ACFE Fraud Reports 2009_2020

VICTIM ORGANIZATIONS

How are different kinds of organizations

affected by occupational fraud?

To better understand the victim organizations in our study, we asked
participants to provide information about the organizations’ type, size,
TYPE OF VICTIM ORG ANIZATION
FREQUENC Y AND MEDIAN L OSS
and industry, as well as the mechanisms that the organizations had in
place to prevent and detect fraud at the time the scheme occurred.

Type of Organization FIG. 12 What types of organizations are victimized by
occupational fraud?
As shown in Figure 12, more than 70% of
42%
the frauds in our study occurred at for-prof-
it organizations, with 42% of the victim
organizations being private companies and 29%
29% being public companies. The private
companies in our study suffered the greatest PERCENT OF C A SES 16%
median loss, at USD 164,000. Not-for-profit 9%
organizations were the victim in only 9% of 4%
frauds and had the smallest median loss of Private Public Government Not-for-profit Other
USD 75,000; however, for many not-for-profit company company
entities, financial resources are extremely
limited and a loss of USD 75,000 can be
particularly devastating.
MEDIAN L OSS $75,000
Level of Government Organization

Resources and operations vary greatly by
level of government, meaning that fraud can $117,000 $118,000 $120,000
affect these organizations differently. Con-
sequently, we broke down the government
fraud cases in our study based on the level $164,000
of government agency involved. While there
was not a large variation in the percentage FIG. 13 What levels of government are victimized
of schemes that occurred at local, state/ by occupational fraud?
provincial, and national levels, the frauds at
national-level agencies tended to be much
larger, causing a median loss approximately 38 F 31 + 5 + 26 + + National: 38% Local: 31%
twice as large as the losses experienced by ($200,000*) ($92,000*)
local and state/provincial governments (see State/provincial: 26% Other: 4%
($110,000*)
Figure 13). *Dollar amounts are median loss. ($58,000*)

20 Victim Organizations Report to the Nations