Defining ‘Global’ for Educators

      Fraud EDge 

What does “global” mean for educators? For those of us teaching tomorrow’s fraud fighters, it means that fraudsters ignore country boundaries, and therefore so should we when covering anti-fraud topics in our classrooms.

“Fraud is becoming an international crime,” said Dr. Joseph T. Wells, CFE, CPA, founder and Chairman of the ACFE. “Most Fortune 1000 companies have international subsidiaries. Individual fraud schemes frequently involve the fraud occurring in one country and the proceeds of the crime being hidden in another.” (Dr. Wells was quoted in “An Interview with Eva Romatzeck,” Fraud Magazine, March/April 2005.)
  
The ACFE, in its 2010 “Report to The Nations on Occupational Fraud and Abuse,” (RTN) recognizes the absence of country barriers by extending its coverage of the incidence and commonalities between countries, cultures, and behaviors. The fraud cases in the 2010 RTN came from 106 nations, with more than 40 percent of cases occurring in countries outside the United States, which provides evidence of the global fraud phenomenon.

The scope of the research allowed the ACFE to more fully explore the global nature of occupational fraud and abuse, providing an enhanced view into the severity and impact of these crimes. Additionally, the ACFE was able to compare worldwide entities’ anti-fraud measures to give fraud fighters everywhere the most applicable and useful information to help them in their fraud prevention and detection efforts.

The consistent patterns of fraud around the globe, as discussed in the report, were striking. Some regional differences exist, but occupational fraud and abuse seems to operate similarly whether it occurs in Europe, Asia, South America, or the United States.