The 16th Annual Association of Certified Fraud Examiner's Conference

This year’s Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) fraud conference was held in Washington, DC, between the 10th of July and 15th 2005. The conference was held at the Hilton Washington hotel on Connecticut Avenue, with almost 2,000 ACFE members from over 100 countries participating this year. The FSM National Public Auditor’s (ONPA) representatives were Chief Investigator Nigel Savidge and Investigative Auditor Sophia Pretrick.

The 16th Annual Fraud Conference & Exhibition was similar to last year’s conference, with participants being eligible to attend pre and post conference seminars as well as the main, three day conference itself. These included a 1-day pre-conference seminar on Investigating Conflicts of Interest and a number of 2-day post-conference events for auditors and investigators. ONPA staff attended the session on Investigating Procurement Fraud. The main conference itself offered over 50 sessions including such diverse topics as “Getting started in the wonderful world of fraud examination,” “Opportunities in expert witnessing,” “How to detect money laundering,” and many more.

Once again, the conference provided an excellent opportunity to develop professional networks and exchange ideas about fraud investigation in an open forum, as well as giving the ONPA Certified Fraud Examiners valuable training hours.

This years speakers were U.S Deputy Attorney General, James B. Comey; Betsy Broder, Assistant Director of Planning and Information of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC); Carol Dibattiste, Chief Credentialing, Compliance and Privacy Officer; and Brian D. Lamkin, Chief of Financial Crimes Section of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Lamkin spoke about emerging trends, criminal organizations, and his team’s aggressive efforts to fight financial crimes. All speakers were very informative. The conference also included the exhibit hall of fraud fighting vendors featuring their latest products on deterrence, detection and investigation.

The ACFE is a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting fraud and white collar crime, with over 34,000 members in over 100 countries. The ACFE has been a major resource of fraud information and training. The Compliance Investigation Division of the ONPA has benefited from ACFE for the last 5 years.