Companies lose more than 5 per cent of their revenue each year to fraud, according to data from an international study by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), presented by Chrystalla Kazara, vice president and director of training for the organization’s Cyprus office.

KEY FACTS

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• The study examined 1,921 real-life cases of job fraud from 138 countries.
• Kazara pointed out that the losses of companies from fraud annually amount to more than 3.1 billion dollars.
• She added that fraud cases are divided into three categories – embezzlement, corruption and misuse of financial statements. Embezzlement was the most common category, accounting for 89 % of cases in the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners survey, Kazara explained.
• According to her, during the coronavirus pandemic, there was a serious increase in losses from fraud by 24 %, with the biggest jump being marked by cases of corruption – 33 %, and in second place was fraud with financial statements. According to her, this is due to the compromise of the companies’ internal control systems.

TANGENT

Kazara pointed out that specifically for Eastern Europe, the most serious problems are due to corruption, which refers to 71 % of the cases in the study by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.

The study also indicates that more than half of the frauds are due to company employees. Kazara emphasized that if employees were trained in how to act on fraud, it would prevent a large number of cases.