International Fraud Awareness Week, 2017

Every year in November, ACFE celebrates International Fraud Awareness Week, to promote anti-fraud awareness and education. This year, November 12-18 is being celebrated as International Fraud Awareness Week.
Whenever we speak of frauds, the first question which comes to our mind is, why do people commit frauds?
There is no simple answer to the question as to why people commit frauds. But in the 1950s Donald Cressey a Sociologist and Criminologist presented a hypothesis on why do people commit frauds.
Trusted persons become trust violators when they conceive of themselves as having a financial problem that is non-sharable, are aware that this problem can be secretly resolved by violation of the position of financial trust, and are able to apply to their contacts in that situation verbalizations which enable them to adjust their conceptions of themselves as users of the entrusted funds or property.
He stated that for embezzlement to occur, there must be:
- a non-sharable problem
- an opportunity for trust violation
- a set of rationalizations that define the behaviour as appropriate in a given situation.
He wrote that none of these elements alone would be sufficient to result in embezzlement; instead, all three elements must be present.
This hypothesis later became the Fraud Triangle Theory.

ACFE has created this small video, to explain the Fraud Triangle.
Please note that Fraud Triangle has its limitation and may not be applicable in every fraud scenario.
You can join the global effort in fighting frauds by becoming a supporter at http://www.fraudweek.com. Here, you will also find many resources on spreading fraud awareness.
And don’t forget to check your knowledge of the infamous fraud scandals by taking the Fraud Trivia Quiz.