Courts in Switzerland dealt with 68 major cases of white-collar crime last year causing losses of CHF567 million ($571 million), according to a new survey by a leading consultancy firm.
That’s a 30% increase in the number of cases compared with 2020, and the total economic damage is up more than CHF200 million the consulting firm KPMG said in its latest Forensic Fraud BarometerExternal link.
The hike is also due a major case of white-collar crime last year involving a defendant who was sentenced to 45 months in prison for forgery of documents, commercial fraud and mismanagement. He caused damage of about CHF300 million.
Seven cases were related to illegally claimed credits from the government during the Covid pandemic, and the most common form of crime is social insurance fraud, the report said.
Most of the victims of fraud were public institutions.
As in previous reports, KPMG said its statistics only shows the tip of the iceberg as the number of unreported cases remains high.
The annual report is based on data from more than 5,000 reports in the Swiss media covering court cases involving fraud of more than CHF50,000.
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The latest annual report on economic crime by KPMG found that the average amount stolen in each crime spiraled from CHF3.3 million in 2018 to CHF7.7 million last year. The number of fraud cases in excess of CHF10 million rose from four in 2018 to nine last year. There was also a 30% increase in…
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