Fraud Magazine has always been in a state of transformation, from its start as a simple newsletter to a glossy magazine reaching more than 90,000 fraud fighters across the globe. Now, the magazine is making another big change as a digital-only publication.
Here we look back at Fraud Magazine’s evolution over the years and look forward to our all-digital future.
The first iteration of Fraud Magazine wasn’t called Fraud Magazine. If you were a member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) in January 1996 — there were about 10,000 members at the time — you might remember receiving
a brand-new ACFE publication in your mailbox called The White Paper. The cover story for that nascent January/February issue was “Report to the Nation: Occupational Fraud has $400 Billion Yearly Price Tag.” There was also a condensed
version of a speech convicted fraudster Barry Minkow gave to the Sixth Annual ACFE Fraud Conference held in San Antonio, Texas, in 1995. Other featured stories included one on human behavior and its connection to fraud and an article
on check kiting.
That first issue was 56 pages. Chairman and founder Dr. Joseph T. Wells, CFE, CPA, addressed readers at the front of the magazine in a section called “Letter from the Chairman” to kick things off. The ACFE’s current president, John Gill, J.D., CFE,
who served as association general counsel in 1996, had a column called “Fraud and the Law.” Dick Carozza, CFE, was the magazine’s first and long-time editor. [You can read more on Carozza’s reflections of the magazine in the sidebar: “Members benefit from print to Fraud Magazine all-digital access”.] The magazine had a serious, professional look to it — there were images and color, for sure — but pages resembled the style
of, well, a business white paper.
And no, Report to the Nation isn’t a typo. You probably know the ACFE’s biannual survey of Certified Fraud Examiners (CFEs) as Occupational Fraud: A Report to the Nations (plural),
but at the time, the ACFE didn’t have 201 chapters across 91 countries. In 1996, there were approximately 75 ACFE chapters, according to ACFE Chapter Development Manager Joe Broccolo, CFE. And most of those chapters were concentrated in the U.S.,
with a smattering of chapters in Australia, the U.K., New Zealand and Canada.
Just as the ACFE’s Report to the Nations expanded to reflect the ACFE’s membership growth, so too did Fraud Magazine. The White Paper was the first step in
Fraud Magazine’s evolution, and now the magazine is on the precipice of another transformation. As you’ve probably already heard, Fraud Magazine is going from the glossy publication arriving in mailboxes every other month to
an all-digital publication with fresh, more frequent anti-fraud content beyond the bimonthly schedule we’ve known for almost 30 years.
“For decades, Fraud Magazine has been a critical source of news and information for our members and has come to be one of the most trusted and well-respected publications in the anti-fraud industry,” says ACFE CEO John Warren, J.D., CFE.
“We’re so excited to launch the next version of the magazine, which is going to allow us to deliver more timely content and expanded coverage of the news that shapes our profession.”
From its early days as a newsletter, to The White Paper, and now to a digital-only publication, Fraud Magazine has been evolving, changing with the times and expanding its reach to fraud fighters all over the world. To commemorate
this last print issue, we’ll look back on Fraud Magazine over the years and look forward to our all-digital future.
The mission
In a recent interview with Fraud Magazine, Dr. Wells recounted the formation of the magazine in the ACFE’s early years as an association. As he tells it, it was 1995, and the ACFE was rapidly growing its membership base. He’d noted how other
associations of comparable size had glossy magazines. “As the ACFE grew, we needed a good communication method with our members, and a magazine seemed to be the right vehicle,” Dr. Wells tells Fraud Magazine.
The ACFE had a newsletter in 1995 — it was called CFE News — but as Gill mentioned in this issue’s “From the President,” it wasn’t fancy or colorful; there weren’t any pictures.
It was a staid affair in need of some gloss. There was another publication from the ACFE at the time called The White Paper, which hewed closely to a magazine format. (See “A pillar of anti-fraud education says farewell,”
by Emily Primeaux, CFE, Fraud Magazine, January/February 2021.) According to Dr. Wells, the decision was made to combine the two into a magazine with the anti-fraud information and practical, down-in-the-trenches fraud-fighting advice
that our members have come to count on. CFE News and The White Paper would become one, with the tag line “Topical Issues on White-Collar Crime.”
But of course, you can’t have a magazine without people to fill the pages with content. This is where Dick Carozza comes into the picture. In 1995, Carozza was an editor and recent transplant to Austin, Texas, and he was looking for magazine work.
The ACFE’s newly formed The White Paper was his opportunity. As he recounted in a 2021 Fraud Magazine article, Carozza was inspired by Dr. Wells’ description of the ACFE and the magazine being sources of the best anti-fraud training
and service in the world. “I like to have a mission within my job, not just a means to make money,” Carozza remarked. (See “A pillar of anti-fraud education says farewell.”)
In the early days of the magazine, it was a small, two-person affair, helmed by Carozza and Austin-based designer Dick Reeves. Eventually the team would add another editor. Katie Ford joined the team in 1997 as an assistant editor and left in 2002.
Ford, who’s now a content strategist and managing editor for USA Today 10Best, remembers what it was like working on a publication focused on a new area of expertise for her. “I had to navigate a steep learning curve as I familiarized myself with
the world of fraud examination, white-collar crime, auditing and accounting,” she tells Fraud Magazine. “However, I had a lot of good people around me who were experts in the field and generous in sharing their knowledge and experience.
Also, I had the distinct pleasure of working under Dick Carozza, who was an incredible mentor to me — not just in editorial matters but in what servant leadership looks like in the workplace.”
Emily Primeaux, the former associate editor of Fraud Magazine, recalls a similar experience when she first started. “I was nervous because this was my first experience working on a print publication. I was in good hands, though, with Dick
Carozza and (former art director) Helen Elliott,” says Primeaux. “They immediately embraced me, and Dick was a true mentor — his tutelage was instrumental to my growth and development as a writer and editor. We were a small, but mighty, group.”
Primeaux served on the magazine for seven years, leaving in 2021 after writing several cover stories and editing numerous articles.
So much of what Fraud Magazine is today — our process, our style, the formatting — is due to Editor-in-Chief Emeritus Carozza. The editorial staff still follows many of the rules and guidance that Carozza devised for the magazine more than
two decades ago. Even as we transition to our exclusively online home, you can bet that his editorial guidance will still play a role. Carozza continues to work in the background, reviewing pieces and sharing his expertise with the current editorial
team.
Through it all, we remain a small, but mighty group. There are three editorial staff members currently editing content and writing articles to keep our members apprised of the latest information in the prevention and detection of fraud.
From The White Paper to Fraud Magazine
Major fraud scandals of the early 2000s set the stage for Fraud Magazine’s next transformation. The major accounting scandals of Enron and WorldCom, etc., brought fraud into focus for the public. In response to those huge corporate scandals,
U.S. Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act of 2002 to regulate how corporations keep financial records and report earnings. In the wake of these scandals and with the passage of SOX, The
White Paper rebranded as Fraud Magazine in 2004.
It was also during this time that Fraud Magazine’s cover stories would morph into a place for interviews with newsmakers and pillars of the anti-fraud profession. The newly renamed Fraud Magazine issue of May/June 2004 featured
Douglas R. Carmichael, CFE, the first chief auditor and director of professional standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which was created by SOX. Since then, the magazine has featured interviews with WorldCom whistleblower
Cynthia Cooper, CFE, and Enron whistleblower Sherron Watkins; Wirecard whistleblower Pav Gill; actor Richard Dreyfuss who played Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff; Theranos whistleblower Tyler Shultz; Preet Bharara, former U.S. attorney for the
Southern District of New York; and Jules Kroll, chairman of K2 Intelligence. More recently, FTX buster and U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, and U.S. Social Security Administration whistleblowers Jennifer Griffith and Sarah Carver, were subjects
of Fraud Magazine cover stories.
Primeaux recalls some of her favorite interviews with anti-fraud crusaders, including Steve Murphy and Javier Peña, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agents behind Netflix’s “Narcos,” who were natural storytellers and fun to interview. “But my
proudest will always be my article about murdered Maltese journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia. I spoke with her son, Matthew, for this interview and I wanted to do it, and her, justice,” says Primeaux. “It was important to me that I accurately
conveyed her relentless pursuit to expose the corrupt workings of the Maltese government and who she was as a loving mother, wife and person.”
It’s true that an all-digital publication doesn’t have a printed “cover,” but that won’t change how we cover big stories about people fighting fraud every day.
Bolder and brighter
The look of the magazine has changed over the years, from the staid visage of The White Paper to the colorful version of the magazine we now publish. Fraud Magazine got a glow-up in the 2010s. Former ACFE art director Helen Elliott
redesigned the magazine for a bolder, brighter look that we’re still working with today. Elliott, who spent 15 years at the ACFE, recalls that the July/August 2018 cover story was her favorite design project. The cover featured director Bryan
Fogel and his documentary about doping in sports. (See “A doping dichotomy,” by Dick Carozza, CFE.) Also, during Elliott’s tenure, we added the I’m a CFE and Fraud in the News sections
to the magazine.
Then, Fraud-Magazine.com got its first revamp in 2016. Elliott and Primeaux worked together to give the website its most recent look. “We always strived to keep things bold and fresh,” says
Primeaux.
Our March/April 2025 issue is set to be our first all-digital issue, and ACFE members will finally get to see the redesigned website. Here, we can give you a little hint of what’s to come.
The magazine’s new home is going to remain bold and bright, while offering easier navigation with more interactive features. We’re so excited for you to see it.
Going all digital
The world is rapidly changing and continues moving towards a nearly all-digital society. So much of our work and our lives exist online. The COVID-19 pandemic certainly helped spur that metamorphosis for the ACFE. As you might recall, the ACFE
had to transition to virtual events in 2020, including our ACFE Global Fraud Conference. We’ve continued offering a virtual option for many of our conferences and other events — it’s incredibly popular. People who’ve never been able
to attend an ACFE conference in the past can now tune in from wherever they are in the world to learn from the top experts in the anti-fraud profession. Indeed, making our magazine a digital-only publication is meant to increase our accessibility
— no more waiting for a printed magazine to arrive in your mailbox. “Members are going to see more content, in more formats, that will be easier to share and access,” says Warren. “We think this is a big step forward for Fraud Magazine and for the ACFE as a leading voice of our industry.”
The magazine’s new home is going to remain bold and bright, while offering easier navigation with more interactive features. We’re so excited for you to see it.
Over the years, we’ve also observed how many of our members have elected to receive their magazines digitally, eschewing a physical copy. In our most recent readership survey from 2022, we included a question about the possibility of the magazine
becoming an all-digital publication. The question received solid support from many of our respondents. Although there was a contingent of members who felt strongly about having a print magazine, many more were enthusiastic and willing to embrace
an all-digital future.
People are increasingly powering up digital-only publications. According to the Pew Research Center, 86% of Americans get their news from a digital device. Just 26% say that they get their news from print publications. (See “News Platform Fact Sheet,” Pew Research Center, Sept. 17, 2024.)
It wasn’t an easy or quick decision. The ACFE has been considering the change, discussing all the pros and cons of being a digital-only publication, but as the costs of ink, paper and postage have risen considerably, in addition to global shipping
hurdles and delays affecting international members, that decision became just a little bit easier to make.
What doesn’t change
The goal of Fraud Magazine (and The White Paper before it) has always been to provide practical, down-in-the-trenches information for anti-fraud professionals. The magazine strives to impart the kind of information that fraud
examiners need to do their jobs and to do it well — how to find evidence, easily identify the red flags of frauds, understand the rationalizations fraudsters make in deciding to commit fraud, know the laws and regulations to comply with, and
utilize the technologies and tools that make fraud examination more efficient.
Even for Dr. Wells, the magazine has been a great source of anti-fraud information over the years. “The quality of the writing and contributions have been educational for me,” he tells Fraud Magazine. “I came out of the FBI, so there
were areas of fraud I never got too deep into. It’s helped me too and deepened my understanding of fraud.”
That goal — to broaden and deepen our members’ understanding of fraud stays the same in our all-digital future. What we’re most looking forward to with a digital-only publication is the ability to provide more frequent content. Instead of four
or five features and four or five columns every other month, we’re planning to have a roster of articles in between our typical bimonthly schedule. That means more practical, down-in-the-trenches anti-fraud information, more often and in real-time.
Lovers of print can tell you how special it is to hold a publication and take it with you wherever you go. Former staff members who talked to Fraud Magazine about its transition from print to digital expressed a certain wistfulness about
it. “I understand the business reasons for going digital; it certainly opens the door for more dynamic storytelling and greater accessibility to content,” says Ford. “But I'm old school at heart. I love the feeling of a good book or magazine
in my hands. And I revel in the time I can spend off screens.”
Primeaux had similar feelings. “I love holding something tangible in my hands when I read, so I struggle to envision a world in which the printed pages of new issues of Fraud Magazine no longer exist. But I understand the digital world
in which we live, and I know that the content itself is still supremely valuable no matter the medium in which it's delivered. I hope CFEs everywhere have held onto their favorite issues, just like I have!”
Indeed, Dr. Wells understands the pull of a physical magazine, but he also has a practical take on the transformation as one that will improve the reading experience for members and help them find information. “There’s pride in having that magazine
in your hands; however, a print publication isn’t searchable by topic. You can do so much more.”
By the time you get this last print issue, Fraud Magazine staff will be in the middle of a brand-new digital production cycle. We’ll be writing, editing and designing an issue filled with practical anti-fraud information for the magazine’s
latest iteration. We know that it will be a big change, but the magazine has made many transformations over the years, and each transition has enabled us to provide better content for our members. “The magazine has gone further than what I
ever envisioned,” says Dr. Wells. “I want members to know that change is hard, but if we didn’t feel this change would be good, we wouldn’t do it. I know you’re going to love it.”
Jennifer Liebman, CFE, is editor-in-chief of Fraud Magazine. Contact her at JLiebman@ACFE.com.
[See sidebar: “Saying goodbye to the print production cycle”.]