Forensic accounting and financial scams in the world

Accounting frauds, malfeasance, and financial crime are becoming a growingly serious problem. Incorrect financial reports show a false picture of income and financial position of a company. Decisions made by investors and other beneficiaries of financial reports based on false financial information cause immense damage not just to the users of information, but general public as well. Therefore, there is a clear interest of the whole financial public sector that the information presented in financial reports genuinely represents the financial position of a company. Numerous financial frauds from the past and the beginning of this century have seriously disturbed trust of a large number of users of financial information contained in financial reports. In accounting there have always been frauds followed by financial collapses, and lately there have been more frequent frauds and with more serious consequences for us all. Research results on financial frauds show that they can be different, depending on the region, fraud pattern, characteristics of perpetrators and victims who suffer the damage, but the essence remains very similar. The biggest frauds by users of financial reports and investors have been performed by presenting false, i.e. forged financial reports.