Centrifuge Systems, Inc. announced that it will participate in International Fraud Awareness Week from Nov. 6-12 as an Official Supporter to promote anti-fraud awareness and education. Fraud Awareness Week comes during a time when organizations around the world lose an estimated five percent of their annual revenues to fraud, according to a study conducted by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE).

Centrifuge Systems has partnered with the ACFE, the world’s largest anti-fraud organization and premier provider of anti-fraud training and education, in a commitment to proactively fight fraud and help safeguard business and investments from this growing problem.

During Fraud Awareness Week, Centrifuge Systems (www.Centrifugesystems.com) will be highlighting a series of anti-fraud industry stories and free videos that educate fraud analysts on how to leverage visual network analytics to create richer investigative profiles for early detection of criminal networks. Visual network analysis solutions help organizations discover insights, patterns and relationships hidden in public, cloud, enterprise data and social networks.

Centrifuge Visual Network Analytics is used for rich profiling and criminal discovery in retail theft, insurance claims fraud, financial crimes analysis and even counter-terrorism and homeland defense. CEO of Centrifuge Systems, Renee Lorton, believes existing technology solutions fall short of mapping the relationships that really matter in detecting hidden crimes of collusion, the specific types of fraud that involve complex networks and behaviors.

“The proliferation of Big Data has created even Bigger Risks and Bigger Threats because of the opportunity for hidden crimes of collusion that can go undetected for 18-24 months,” according to Renee Lorton, CEO of Centrifuge Systems. “Traditional pattern-based discovery can’t connect people, behavior and activities in a relationship map that can measure or profile the risk.

Your business network is your relationship network is your revenue network. Organizations that don’t take action will find themselves increasingly at risk.” ACFE President James D. Ratley, CFE, said that the support of organizations around the world helps make Fraud Week an effective tool in raising anti-fraud awareness.

“Regardless of the size of an organization or its business model, fraud is a serious concern – and if undetected, it can have a measurable impact on the bottom line,” Ratley said. “Once again, we want to say ‘thank you’ to all of the Fraud Awareness Week supporters for helping to shine a spotlight on the urgent need for fraud prevention and detection,” Ratley said. In its 2010 Report to the Nations on Occupational Fraud & Abuse, the ACFE found that:

  • Fraud schemes are extremely costly. Survey participants estimated that the typical organization loses 5% of its annual revenue to fraud. The median loss caused by the occupational fraud cases in the ACFE study was $ 160,000. Nearly one-quarter of the frauds involved losses of at least $ 1 million.
  • Schemes can continue for months or even years before they are detected. The frauds in the study lasted a median of 18 months before being caught.
  • Occupational fraud is a global problem. Though some findings differ slightly from region to region, most of the trends in fraud schemes, perpetrator characteristics and anti-fraud controls are similar regardless of where the fraud occurred.
  • Fraudsters are not typical “repeat offenders” . More than 85% of fraudsters in our study had never been previously charged or convicted for a fraud-related offense.

For more information about increasing awareness and reducing the risk of fraud during International Fraud Awareness Week, visit www.FraudWeek.com.