Despite heightened efforts at regulation and companies' investments in controls, fraudremains a major threat to companies around the world. From simple theft to more complexschemes involving management and corruption, the threat continues regardless of acompany's size, location or industry.

With over eight years of data on trends, perceptions and incidents of fraud,PricewaterhouseCoopers' Global economic crime survey 2007 points to the continuedevidence of the intractability of fraud. Entitled Economic crime: People, culture andcontrols, the report reveals that internal controls alone are not enough to fight it.Instead, controls must be backed by a strong ethical company culture, a broad riskmanagement programme, and "zero tolerance" of executives or other employees who commiteconomic crimes.

The survey is based on months of interviews of over 5,400 companies located in40 countries. It is the largest, most comprehensive international survey of economiccrime. The report also includes the results of over 1,500 interviews of senior companyexecutives about their experience doing business in seven emerging marketeconomies.