The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) found that employees in executive management positions accounted for27 percent of expense reimbursement fraud cases.
The ACFE examined 1,483 cases of “occupational fraud” in more than 100 countries as reported by certified fraud examiners who investigated the cases between October and December 2013, explained Travel Procurement.
“Authority tends to be strongly correlated with loss because high-level fraudsters generally have greater access to organizational assets and are better able to evade or override controls than lower-level employees,” the survey’s authors said. “Additionally, because higher-level fraudsters are typically in a better position to circumvent controls, it generally takes longer for victim organizations to detect these schemes.”
As reported by the news source, expense reimbursement accounted for 13.8 percent of asset misappropriation fraud cases, which represented an average loss of $30,000 per case. The fraud incidents included cases with mischaracterized, overstated and fictitious expenses, as well as multiple reimbursements.
ACFE Director of Research Andi McNeal told the news source that the purpose of the investigation was to examine the details of reported fraud cases – not to measure whether overall fraud increased or decreased compared with previous years. McNeal added that “There’s no way to examine how much fraud is actually out there.”
