Fraud cases on the rise in UK
The number of fraud cases brought court in the UK last year rose by 14%, according to the latest figures from Big Four firm KPMG.
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The firm’s fraud barometer found that a total of 174 fraud cases came to court in 2004, and stated that over the last five years there has been a threefold increase in cases being tried. The value of the cases being tried, however, saw a drop of 12% to £330m.
A third of all cases were brought against management and employees, who had defrauded their companies of around £106m. Last year, UK business paid millions of pounds to phantom workers and nearly £70m in bogus invoices.
‘The rise in the number of cases overall is bad news for UK businesses,’ said David Alexander, fraud investigation partner at KPMG. ‘While the number of ‘super-size’ cases has fallen, more companies than ever are falling victim to fraud. Our survey covers fraud cases over £100,000, but we often find that losing even what may be relatively small amounts of money can disrupt cashflow and bring quite large businesses to their knees.’