CFEs make significant advancements over past 10 years, 2022 Report to the Nations shows

CFEs are catching frauds faster than ever before — 33% faster now than they did in 2012, to be precise. At the same time, median losses from frauds have shrunk by 16% over the past 10 years. These are just some of the findings in the ACFE’s Occupational Fraud 2022: A Report to the Nations, showing how fraud examiners are upping their game and making all the difference in this ever-evolving field. (See ACFE.com/RTTN.)

In fact, in 2012, the median time it took CFEs to detect a fraud was 18 months, but now they’re discovering wrongdoing in just 12 months. In 2012, the median loss from fraud was $140,000, but in 2022 it was $117,000.

“It’s very encouraging to see we are catching frauds more quickly than we were 10 years ago,” says ACFE Chief Strategy Officer John Warren, J.D., CFE. “By catching them more quickly, we’re lowering median fraud losses. That speaks to the great work CFEs have done in raising awareness about fraud risk and improving tools to detect and prevent these crimes.”

Indeed, organizations have ramped up their anti-fraud efforts in the last 10 years, according to the report, with more organizations implementing anti-fraud controls, training employees on fraud, and adopting anti-fraud policies and formal risk assessments. Seventy percent of the victim organizations in the 2022 study had a hotline in place compared to 54% in 2012. Likewise, 61% provide fraud training for employees, up from 47% in 2012, and 60% have a fraud policy in the 2022 study, up from 47% in 2012. In 2012, 36% of victim organizations employed formal fraud risk assessments, but that number has jumped to 46% in the 2022 report.