{"id":16642,"date":"2024-08-01T12:59:08","date_gmt":"2024-08-01T16:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/collierclerk.com\/?p=16642"},"modified":"2026-01-20T12:59:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T17:59:33","slug":"occupational-fraud-2024-a-report-to-the-nations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/occupational-fraud-2024-a-report-to-the-nations\/","title":{"rendered":"Occupational Fraud 2024: A Report to the Nations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-16644 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/collierclerk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/4-12.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"343\" height=\"220\" srcset=\"https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/wp-content\/uploads\/4-12.png 343w, https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/wp-content\/uploads\/4-12-300x192.png 300w, https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/wp-content\/uploads\/4-12-150x96.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 343px) 100vw, 343px\" \/>The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) recently released their 13<sup>th<\/sup> edition of \u201cOccupational Fraud 2024: A Report to the Nations\u201d (Copyright 2024 by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, Inc.), \u201cthe largest and most comprehensive study ever conducted on the costs and effects of occupational fraud.\u201d\u00a0 Since 1996, the ACFE has offered this report to business leaders, government officials, anti-fraud professionals, and the public to help improve our collective ability to protect organizations from the harm caused by occupational fraud.<\/p>\n<p>The ACFE estimates that 5% of a company\u2019s revenues are lost to fraud.\u00a0 For the Collier County Board of County Commissioners (BCC), that would equate to over a $100 million dollars annually at risk.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Strong internal controls are key to lowering fraud losses.\u00a0 These controls consist of the policies and procedures implemented to ensure financial reports are reliable, operations are efficient, and activities are compliant with applicable laws and regulations. Internal controls can be tested and validated by checking or auditing to see if specific process steps (such as approval signatures) were followed.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-16645 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/collierclerk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/5-7.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"281\" height=\"320\" srcset=\"https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/wp-content\/uploads\/5-7.png 343w, https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/wp-content\/uploads\/5-7-264x300.png 264w, https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/wp-content\/uploads\/5-7-132x150.png 132w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 281px) 100vw, 281px\" \/>The ACFE found that the opportunity for occupational fraud occurred in over half of the cases due to the lack of internal controls (32%) or the override of existing controls (19%).\u00a0 Internal audit\u2019s identification and testing of these internal controls provides a proactive approach to deterring occupational fraud.\u00a0 As the Clerk is established by Florida constitution the Auditor and Chief Financial Officer of the County, financial controls are the primary focus of the Clerk\u2019s Office of Inspector General (OIG) in conducting audits of controls.<\/p>\n<p>Internal audit is one of the services provided to the BCC and Clerk\u2019s operations, as part of the Clerk\u2019s OIG.\u00a0 Internal auditing is an independent, objective assurance and consulting activity designed to enhance and preserve organizational value. It brings a systematic, disciplined approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of risk management, control, and governance processes. This includes assessing the risks within the organizations, evaluating the objectives of the functions, and ensuring that the controls to ensure those objectives are in place and operating properly.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The OIG\u2019s audit team is led by the Inspector General and Senior Auditor, both of whom are Certified Internal Auditors (CIA), the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) flagship certification for Internal Audit professionals.\u00a0 The OIG\u2019s audit team also holds certifications as Certified Inspector General Auditors (CIGA), Certified Agile Audit Professionals (CAAP), Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), and certification in data analytics (CIDA).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-16646 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/collierclerk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/6-9.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"297\" height=\"322\" srcset=\"https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/wp-content\/uploads\/6-9.png 353w, https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/wp-content\/uploads\/6-9-277x300.png 277w, https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/wp-content\/uploads\/6-9-138x150.png 138w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 297px) 100vw, 297px\" \/>By far, the primary method of detecting fraud is tips (43%).\u00a0 Most (52%) tips originate from employees, followed in frequency by customers\/constituents (21%) and vendors (11%).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Tips about potential fraud related to BCC operations, Clerk operations, or guardianship assets for Collier County cases, can be reported in English or Spanish to our local <strong>Inspector General hotline<\/strong> by calling <strong>(239) 252-8412<\/strong>, or through the 24-hour confidential hotline at <strong>844-ClerkIG (844-253-7544)<\/strong>. Additional reporting options are shown on the Clerk\u2019s website at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.CollierClerk.com\">www.collierclerk.com<\/a><u>. <\/u><\/p>\n<p>The Clerk\u2019s OIG is taking a proactive outreach approach to educate the community on fraud and ways to identify and protect themselves from scammers. If your group wants to learn more about fraud prevention, call the OIG at <strong>(239) 252-8412<\/strong> to schedule.<\/p>\n<p>The full <a href=\"https:\/\/legacy.acfe.com\/report-to-the-nations\/2024\/\">2024 ACFE Report to the Nations<\/a> is available to the public for download.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/designrr.page\/?id=337210&amp;token=264914288&amp;h=6818\">Read and download the August 2024 Newsletter.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) recently released their 13th edition of \u201cOccupational Fraud 2024: A Report to the &#8230; <\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more-container\"><a title=\"Occupational Fraud 2024: A Report to the Nations\" class=\"read-more button\" href=\"https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/occupational-fraud-2024-a-report-to-the-nations\/#more-16642\" aria-label=\"Read more about Occupational Fraud 2024: A Report to the Nations\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":16643,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1197,820,701,273,1196],"class_list":["post-16642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-announcements","tag-acfe","tag-association-of-certified-fraud-examiners-acfe","tag-clerks-office-of-inspector-general-oig","tag-fraud","tag-occupational-fraud","infinite-scroll-item","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-25","resize-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16642"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16674,"href":"https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16642\/revisions\/16674"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/app.collierclerk.com\/collierclerkcom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}