Of course, we can’t say there’s no country that has 0% fraud. Fraud is there, in every country, it’s only the scale that is different. The level of occurrence is directly influenced by government action or inaction against this crime.

A recent report by leading forensic accountants Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) said that about 62% of its interviewed respondents reported a decline in financial performance over the past 12 months and 40% of all respondents said the risk of economic crime had risen due to the recession.

In this survey released by PWC, it stated that Russia had the most fraudulent economy. This was followed by the annual publication of the Corruption Perception Index by Transparency International which ranked Russia, which has one of the largest economies, as one of the most corrupt countries with their exact number being 146th place! This is in a similar range as Ecuador and Kenya.

Attempts by Russia to stamp out white-collar fraud had done little to stop its spread especially during the global financial downturn. In a country where corruption is a way of life for millions, the PWC survey stated that half the Russian respondents said anti-crime measures were inefficient and that no industry in particular had been spared.

The fraud survey said that Russian fraud had risen by 12% since 2007.

The second most fraudulent country as listed by Price Waterhouse Cooper was South Africa, which had 62 percent rate of response to the survey question about crime. Third with 57 percent was Kenya, and fourth was Canada by 56 percent, then Mexico with 51 percent, and the Ukraine with 45 percent.

According to the survey, countries that reported the lowest levels of fraud were the Netherlands with 15 percent, Turkey 15 percent, Hong Kong with 13 percent and finally Japan with the least at only 9.6 percent.

Asset misappropriation, corruption, and bribery were reported as the most common types of fraud. Taking into consideration the current global economy being in such a horrific state, fraud cases are only expected to get worse.

It is this fraud that creates the need for a global framework of anti fraud professionals. Fraud squad officers, public regulators and private sector fraud investigators all earn their livings from the worldwide problem of fraud.