Corporate criminality

A massive 54 percent of companies in Poland incurred losses from various types of economic crime, with asset misappropriation and corruption the most common, according to research from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

In its 2005 Global Economic Crime Survey PwC paints a worrying picture of Polish business, with one third of offenders employed by the company they stole from. Furthermore if you want to catch the perpetrator, start at the top - 45 percent of those with their fingers in the till occupy managerial posts. The global average is much lower, at 20 percent.

What other characteristics should you watch out for? The average fraudster is male (86 percent of cases) with high school or university education. He is 31 to 40 years old. Maintaining his expensive lifestyle is the main cause for his transgressions (50 percent in the case of senior staff), and he probably wasn't even aware what he was doing was wrong (57 percent of the cases involving senior staff).

Whistleblowers are an increasingly important tool in detecting corporate crime. Globally, 28 percent of all economic crimes were revealed thanks to a report from someone within or outside the company. In Poland, solidarity with fraudsters or a traditional dislike of informing seems much stronger as only in 16 percent of cases did somebody decide to tell the competent authorities about a crime.

Companies also appear to show little mercy when fraudsters are caught red-handed - 55 percent of companies surveyed pressed criminal charges against perpetrators and 32 percent took the case to the civil courts.