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Company executives 'increasingly committing fraud'

20 June 2011

Senior managers in businesses are becoming increasingly likely to be those who carry out fraud against the organization they work for, it has been claimed.

A new global study by KMPG discovered many companies are missing or ignoring the warning signs of such activity among bosses and executives.

The professional services firm also found almost one in three incidents of fraud concerns forms of corruption such as bribes, with the survey covering 348 occurrences in 69 countries.

According to the research, board members are responsible for 18 per cent of fraud cases, rising from 11 per cent within four years, with a particularly sharp jump seen in chief executives' and managing directors' offices and typical fraudsters found to be male and aged between 36 and 45.

In the UK, the survey found culprits were more likely than those in other nations to have worked for employers for over a decade.

A pair of individuals who previously worked for T-Mobile in the UK have been fined £73,400 in total for stealing and selling confidential information relating to the firm's customers.

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