Profile of a Fraudster

www.kpmg.co.uk...

Fraudster facts and figures:

70 percent of fraudsters were between the ages of 36 and 55 years old.
85 percent of perpetrators were male.
In 68 percent of profiles the perpetrator acted independently.
In 89 percent of profiles the fraudsters were employees committing fraudulent acts against their own employer, whereas 20 percent involved complicity with an external perpetrator, resulting in the conclusion that in only 11 percent of all profiles the companies were attacked purely by externals.
Members of senior management (including board members) represent 60 percent of all fraudsters.
An additional 26 percent of profiles involve management level persons bringing the total to 86 percent of profiles involving management.
This result highlights a risk that every company faces: executives are entrusted with sensitive company information and yet are also often in a position to override internal controls.
In 36 percent of profiles the perpetrator worked for their company for 2-5 years before committing fraud.
In 22 percent of profiles the fraudulent employees registered more than 10 years of service at the victim’s organization.
In just 13 percent of profiles the fraudster was with the company for less than 2 years prior to committing fraudulent acts.
The internal fraudster most often works in the finance department followed by operations/sales or as the CEO.

Fraud details:
Misappropriation of money was revealed as the most common type of fraud.
In 83 percent of profiles the fraudsters acted nationally and not internationally.
91 percent of perpetrators did not stop at one single fraudulent transaction but rather performed multiple fraudulent transactions; every third perpetrator acted more than 50 times.
A total loss of 1 million EUR and more per fraudster and profile was caused by every second fraudster in Europe, by almost every third perpetrator in South Africa and by every fourth offender in India and the Middle East.
In 24 percent of profiles the timeframe for perpetrating fraudulent acts was less than 1 year.
In 67 percent of profiles fraudsters acted within a timeframe between 1 year and 5 years until they were exposed or stopped their fraudulent activities.
This result generates questions concerning the effectiveness and the quality of existing internal controls: why were they not able to discover or stop fraudulent acts within the recurring standard controls in more than two thirds of all profiles?

Greed and opportunity (when taken together account for 73 percent of profiles) are indicated to be the overriding motivations for fraud.

www.nebusiness.co.uk...=north-leads-the-way-in-the-battle-against-fraud%26method=full%26objectid=2 3756766%26siteid=51140-name_page.html

Last week, the city of London police called for the creation of a national fraud intelligence bureau as new figures revealed a 64% rise in reported fraud in the last financial year.

Commissioner Mike Bowron said a heightened sense of financial caution among businesses caused by the economic downturn may have exposed frauds which have been going on for some time.

He also said there had been an increased amount of elaborate mortgage frauds involving bent lawyers, estate agents and developers during the credit crunch.

[edit on 1-6-2009 by BetweenMyths]

[edit on 1-6-2009 by BetweenMyths]

So how do you prevent fraud...? Only hire females 36 and under or 55 and older for management positions?
It's not really surprising though, people that seek management positions seem to be power and money hungry in general, and feel they're entitled to anything they want, imo anyway.