Accountancies struggle to quantify true size of UK fraud in 2010

Accounting firms BDO and KPMG have issued conflicting reports on the value and number of cases of fraud in the UK in the last year.

BDO says although instances of fraud of more than £50,000 have risen in the past five years, the sum total size of the issue dropped in 2010. In total, schemes worth £2 billion were detected in 2009, compared with £1.4 billion the following year, a drop of more than 25%.

"In 2010, we had 372 cases totalling £1.4 billion in the UK," says Simon Bevan, head of fraud at