Corporate Fraud Handbook: Prevention and Detection

by Joseph T. Wells

Delve into the mind of a fraudster to beat them at their own game

Corporate Fraud Handbook details the many forms of fraud to help you identify red flags and prevent fraud before it occurs. Written by the founder and chairman of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), this book provides indispensable guidance for auditors, examiners, managers, and criminal investigators: from asset misappropriation, to corruption, to financial statement fraud, the most common schemes are dissected to show you where to look and what to look for. This new fifth edition includes the all-new statistics from the ACFE 2016 Report to the Nations on Occupational Fraud and Abuse, providing a current look at the impact of and trends in fraud. Real-world case studies submitted to the ACFE by actual fraud examiners show how different scenarios play out in practice, to help you build an effective anti-fraud program within your own organization. This systematic examination into the mind of a fraudster is backed by practical guidance for before, during, and after fraud has been committed; you'll learn how to stop various schemes in their tracks, where to find evidence, and how to quantify financial losses after the fact.

Fraud continues to be a serious problem for businesses and government agencies, and can manifest in myriad ways. This book walks you through detection, prevention, and aftermath to help you shore up your defenses and effectively manage fraud risk.

• Understand the most common fraud schemes and identify red flags
• Learn from illustrative case studies submitted by anti-fraud professionals
• Ensure compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley and other regulations
• Develop and implement effective anti-fraud measures at multiple levels
• Fraud can be committed by anyone at any level—employees, managers, owners, and executives—and no organization is immune. Anti-fraud regulations are continually evolving, but the magnitude of fraud's impact has yet to be fully realized. Corporate Fraud Handbook provides exceptional coverage of schemes and effective defense to help you keep your organization secure.

You may be surprised to learn it doesn't take a sophisticated level of complexity and innovation to steal from an organization—even when numerous people have eyes on it and work in it every day. An extensive examination of decades' worth of fraud cases reveals all thieving can be classified into three main categories. In these categories, classifications of specific schemes exist, and they are all the possible ways your organization can be robbed. The Corporate Fraud Handbook demystifies the nefarious ways criminally minded employees steal in plain sight and often get away with it.

Unless auditors, investigators, managers, business owners, and others who need to stop losses know what to look for, their organizations could be suffering significant financial and human damages from crimes ranging from false overtime and petty theft to multilayered investment swindles and bribery. This fully updated Fifth Edition features real cases presented in the Report to the Nations on Occupational Fraud and Abuse, prepared by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE). Based on the broad framework mapped out in the reports, founder and chairman of the ACFE Joseph Wells takes serious practitioners much further in this practical handbook to all the details of illegal schemes. A diligent and meticulous approach to satisfying such regulatory requirements as Sarbanes-Oxley is critical to transparency—but it's not enough. To develop the right kind of eyes to see the devil in the details, professionals need a comprehensive, convenient reference for what to look for and, most importantly, meaningful steps you can take to stop illegal activities before they start. Keep this resource at your fingertips for its:

• Psychological enlightenment of why employees become motivated to commit occupational crimes
• Flowchart illustrations of schemes and their variations, along with insightful observations and conclusions for creating prevention and detection strategies
• Valuable rules of thumb and techniques for spotting the warning signs of fraud and complying with the latest regulatory updates

Corporate Fraud Handbook is the definitive guidebook to preventing and detecting fraud in today's complicated business environment.

The Utility Belt for Occupational Crime Fighters

Corporate Fraud Handbook, Fifth Edition is the authoritative resource for identifying and preventing all the various types of fraud eating away at too many of today's organizations. Written by the founder and chairman of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), this practical guidebook offers unmatched real-world insights into exactly how the most prevalent types of occupational crime are committed and how to stay a step ahead of it all through preventative measures. Extensively updated with fresh examples and statistics, this single resource enables you to:

• Develop a remarkable expertise in fraud detection and prevention based on your understanding of fundamental business procedures and terminology
• Identify the "red flags" for the most common types of asset misappropriation, corruption, and financial statement fraud
• Design and implement a state-of-the-art program for preventing fraud at every level of an organization

Fraud can be committed by anyone at any level of an organization, and Corporate Fraud Handbook, Fifth Edition shows you every way it happens and all the ways to see it, stop it, and calculate your losses.