The [tag]Association of Certified Fraud Examiners[/tag] ([tag]ACFE[/tag]) will be releasing their latest [tag]Report to the Nation[/tag] on [tag]Occupational Fraud[/tag] & Abuse later this month. 1,134 [tag]Certified Fraud Examiners[/tag] ([tag]CFE[/tag]) participated in the survey that produced these results.
Key findings of the report include:

• An estimated 5% of annual revenue is lost to fraud in the U.S., totaling $652 billion lost each year
• [tag]Asset misappropriation[/tag], a crime involving [tag]theft[/tag] or misuse of a company’s assets, account for 91.5% of all cases
• [tag]Fraudulent financial statements[/tag] occurred least often, but were the most costly with a median loss of $2 million per fraud
• The most common way that a fraud was detected was via tips from employees, customers or vendors (34.2%), with “by accident” following second (25.4%)
• By Accident: 25.4 percent

The results are troubling, especially since an increased focus on fraud does not seem to be making a noticeable dent in the incidence of fraud. According to [tag]Joseph Wells[/tag], founder of ACFE, .As a group, CPAs are neither stupid nor crooked. But the majority are still ignorant about fraud. That.s because for the last 80 years, untrained accounting graduates have been drafted to wage war against sophisticated liars and thieves. And as multi-billion dollar accounting failures have shown, it hasn.t been much of a fight..

Note: I participated in this survey by submitting the details of a fraud I investigated.