The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACDE) published an interesting report in 2010 entitled "Report to the Nations on Occupational Fraud and Abuse".

They break down their operational analysis into 3 distinct categories :

• Asset Misappropriations
• Corruption Schemes
• Financial Statement Fraud  

Interestingly, they were able to show correlation between the rank of the fraudster and the value of the fraud (aka the higher the rank, the higher the value of the fraud.) Numerically, a fraud perpetrated by an owner/general manager is usually 3x more costly  than that perpetrated by a "basic" manager and 9x more than a fraud commitment further down the chain of command.

86% of fraudsters in the report did not have prior fraud convictions. 8% of fraudsters were administratively punished by previous employers and 10% had been terminated by a previous employer for suspected fraud. This calls into question the effectiveness of conducting background checks as it relates to fraud prevention.

The 2010 report this shows that men are the primary offenders. It is expected however that the number of frauds commited by woman will increase as more and more of them move up in the ranks and hold positions of power.