Big Global Charities Hiring Their Own Fraud Investigators

Dogged by growing public mistrust and calls for greater transparency, nonprofits active in corruption-prone crisis zones are retaining their own criminal investigators to ferret out fraud, according to Reuters.

Plan International, Oxfam GB, AmeriCares, and International Medical Corps are among the global aid groups that have installed trained counter-fraud directors at their head offices. Other charities, such as Medicins Sans Frontieres, Handicap International, and Action Against Hunger, are using auditors and finance officers to handle suspected fraud cases.

Rapid growth in the aid sector — spending by the world’s 50 biggest relief organizations has doubled to $18 billion in the past decade — has fueled concerns over a lack of accountability, in turn driving the trend toward greater internal fraud controls, Reuters writes.