CRI Group™ Celebrate 2021 International Fraud Awareness Week

CRI Group™ is once again a proud supporter of 2021’s International Fraud Awareness Week. Taking place throughout the week of November 14th to November 20th of 2021, International Fraud Awareness Week is a global effort is a move to diminish the influence of fraud by advocating for anti-fraud awareness and education. According to the 2021 ACFE Report to the Nations, organisation’s continue to lose about 5% of revenue to fraud each year and currently, there are more than 3.3 billion people in the global workforce with nearly all of them having access to or control over some portion of their employer’s cash or assets – an amount which contributes to such a loss.

Corresponding to the most recent ACFE report, other fraud trends which have remained constant throughout the last few years include:

• Asset misappropriation is the most identified scheme
• Tips are the greatest process of exposure
• The lengthier that fraud goes unbridled, the greater the median loss

Zafar Anjum, founder, and CEO of CRI Group™ said that International Fraud Awareness Week (called Fraud Week, for short) is a crucial endeavour drawing attention to fraud and aiding to support better education towards communities about the liabilities that accompany fraud. “CRI Group™ has been a proud supporter of Fraud Week for past years”, Anjum said. “It’s an important time to urge organisations of all shapes and sizes to conduct proper due diligence and minimise risk. Only by addressing fraud and corruption proactively can we make progress in preventing and detecting it”.

For CRI Group™, though, assisting organisations with the deterrence and detection of fraud is a year-round responsibility which is why Fraud Week is a wonderful occasion to acknowledge CRI® Group’s contemporary exertions in the bout alongside fraud; it is also a wonderful time to look ahead on CRI Group’s activities which are all nearing their time of action.

Here are just a few of the highlights:

Active Participants 

CRI Group™ participated in conferences as a means of educating professionals on fraud and corruption; such as the PBSA 2021 Annual Conference. Furthermore, our experts discussed ISO 37001 and other anti-bribery management solutions with a range of industry professionals across the world by inviting them as speakers to our webinars and actively collaborating with them through other means. “CRI Group™ is comprised of subject-specific experts with diversified speciality areas,” Anjum said. “Our audit team has years of substantive field experience as investigators, compliance officers and legal professionals.”

Continue educating the masses

With ABAC™ in place, we found that corporate leaders were eager to learn more about preventing bribery and fighting corruption however, one other obstacle remained in our way; the pandemic. 2021 saw CRI alongside ABAC™ continue their efforts to share best practices, demonstrate resources and discuss the latest technology for preventing corruption despite the global pandemic which admittedly, probably has changed the way the corporate world works forever. Our webinars are designed with every passing moment in mind so that solutions and advice can be entirely bespoke to the client at hand. Our webinars to date include:

• Protecting Your Company from the Global Corruption Pandemic

We kicked off the year with a webinar built to explore and identify a combination of institutional solutions for managing and monitoring corporate compliance to prevent bribery and corruption in a modern enterprise. The aim of this webinar was to identify how to protect your organisation from global corruption and to critically assess the applicability of several recent legislative guidelines to the proactive mitigation of corruption and bribery in corporate administration across the world. Based on Airbus and Rolls-Royce cases of multinational, multi-party bribery, the webinar dived into the consequences of systemic inadequacy, confirming a paradigm shift in corporate oversight and network risk management.

• Bribery discovered: what to do in the next 48 hours? with Robert Youill, Executive Director at Key Risk Consulting Asia

We explored what course of action to take in the first 48 hours after discovering bribery as well as how to prepare for such crisis management and finally, how to manage the risks more effectively and minimise the chances of such a situation happening at all. Key speakers consisted of CRI Group’s/ABAC’s own Zafar Anjum, and Robert Youill, Executive Director at Key Risk Consulting Asia. Both talked about the steps you have to take in the next 48 hours after bribery is discovered concerning your organisation and how to identify the gaps in your existing anti-bribery anti-corruption management system.

• Pitfalls Most Organisations Often Commit – the importance of implementing Anti-Bribery Management System (ABMS) with DATO’SRI AKHBAR SATAR, Managing Director at Akhbar Corporate Integrity Services

Here at CRI™, we like to say why be a part of the problem when you can be a part of the solution? This webinar covered information regarding bribery, including consequences of bribery and defences to bribery as well as an overview of the regulatory framework, specifically the New Corporate Liability provision under Section 17A of the Malaysian Anticorruption Commission Act 2009 and a comparative study of Section 7 of the UK Bribery Act 2010. This webinar is great for organisations who wish to widen their knowledge and expertise regarding the ISO 37001 Anti-bribery Management System standard.

• What does it mean to be a whistleblower? with MACC Senior Assistant Commissioner & Head Private Sector Branch Community Education Division (Tuan Haji Mohd Nur Lokman Samingan) and President – Association of ABMS Practitioners Malaysia, Dr KM Loi

Whistleblowing does not only refer to the act of a whistleblower who informs, reports or discloses on someone or the organisation is conducting or going to conduct any illicit activity which may harm the interests of stakeholders. Meanwhile, it has also emerged in its mainstream functions and the essential roles in leading today‘s modern corporations to enforce effective whistleblowing policy within their compounds of governance. The goal was to provide resources and access to organisations around the globe on standards and certifications that will aid them in expansion and an ethical working environment.

• Compliance & Adequate Due Diligence for Third-Party Risk Management with SAMIA EL KADIRI, IRCA Lead Auditor, Governance & Compliance Consultant, in collaboration with DQG

Widespread trust is built on a company culture of doing the right thing, where every employee contributes because they understand and believe in its importance. Our “Building a Culture of Compliance and Trust Through ISO 37301:2021 CMS” webinar in collaboration with Dubai Quality Group and our sister brand the Anti-Bribery Anti-Corruption (ABAC™) Center of Excellence highlighted all essential parts of a corporate compliance program. The aim of this webinar was to be able to provide resources on corporate compliance and due diligence to organisations around the globe that will aid them in expansion and an ethical working environment.

All of our webinars are designed with our audience and beyond in mind and we aim to educate and equip corporate leaders of all industries and sizes with the resources we have available to us.

Raised Fraud Awareness

Our content is created to inform and provide important information that might be missed in today’s news cycles – that being said, CRI Group™ has produced more than 50 educational news articles and publications to help educate business leaders, government leaders, professionals and the public about fraud and corruption. Our subject matter experts deliver important information, such as why forensic accounting can be important during a fraud investigation, or how risk assessments can be used to better protect your organisation.

The methods for committing fraud are ever-evolving, so it’s no question that our experts remain dedicated to building their skill sets and staying on the cutting edge in a bid to help clients be successful in detecting and deterring fraud in and out of their immediate workspace. To do so we have launched a few new educational articles:

• Due diligence and tips to avoid fraud
• 8 Steps to prevent fraud
• Reporting Fraud: Do you know what measures to implement?
• 2021 Fraud Week: Prevention is Key
• Why International Fraud Awareness Week is a great time to reflect
• Reporting Fraud: Do you know what measures to implement?

Collaborating with Anti-Bribery Anti-Corruption Centre of Excellence (ABAC™)

At CRI Group™, we recognised the need for an independent certification body for ISO 37001: Anti-Bribery Management System which is why we founded the ABAC™ Center of Excellence back in 2016. Our goal was and still is to assist organisations worldwide in certification for anti-corruption, risk management and compliance; we do this largely by providing training and certification for ISO 37001. Our experts help organisations implement effective anti-bribery management programs using widely accepted controls, systems and best practices in line with local and international legislation. 2021 allowed CRI Group™ various opportunities to work hand in hand with our sister brand to materialise our missions at both brands and make them into a reality that benefited so many corporate leaders and personnel across the globe.

CRI Group™ is proud to announce that we will be hosting a free webinar on December 9th 2021 in conjunction with our sister brand Anti-Bribery Anti-Corruption (ABAC™) Center of Excellence Group. Our intention is to be able to provide resources on corporate compliance to organisations around the globe that will aid them in expansion and an ethical working environment. In recent years, third-party risk management has become a primary concern for organisations, amid increased outsourcing against a backdrop of rising costs, digitisation and low-interest rates, which have put downward pressure on margins. While there are many benefits driving outsourcing, e.g., increased efficiency and scale, it naturally also increases the level of risk and complexity of third-party relationships. Coupled with increased lengths of agreements, on average five to seven years, the need for ongoing performance management becomes that much greater.

Take advantage of this free webinar on third-party due diligence and oversight. Register below and save your seat today!

SAVE YOUR SEAT (Expired Now)

Accrediting global corporations with ISO 37001

CRI Group’s sister brand ABAC™ Center of Excellence was also incredibly honoured to earn official accreditation from Emirates International Accreditation Center – EIAC (UAE) to administer training and certification for ISO 37001 ABMS. The year 2021 saw the ABAC™ Center of Excellence accrediting organisations such as UDA Holdings Berhad Group (UDA) and Mubadala Petroleum with the certification which is a success in the sense of achieving a transparent corporate model. Founder and CEO of CRI Group™ Zafar Anjum has stated “EIAC provide objective evidence that organisations operate at the highest level of ethical, legal and technical standards…That’s exactly where ISO 37001 fits in – helping to protect organisations from bribery and money laundering.”

Found fraud

Through various client engagements, CRI Group’s investigative analysts found a large number of red flags indicating possible fraud. How many? The answer may be surprising: our agents discovered more than 700 red flags across 80 countries. The first step in fighting fraud is knowing that it exists. The sooner it is discovered, the less damage a fraud scheme can do to an organisation.

During International Fraud Awareness Week, think about the statistics at the beginning of this article … and ask yourself or your colleagues: Are we doing all we can to prevent fraud? Remember, the landscape is always changing, and fraudsters will do everything they can to use evolving technology and other methods to find vulnerabilities. Moreover, the best way to fight fraud is to prevent it in the first place. CRI Group™ is here to help, contact us today to learn more.