Australian Investigation & Fraud Index 2026
An intelligence-led reading of published Australian evidence on scams, deception and investigative risk. The truth has a trail.
The signal in the noise.
Reported financial harm rose while one national household survey found a lower scam victimisation rate. Both can be true.
The National Anti-Scam Centre recorded $2.18 billion in combined reported scam losses in calendar 2025, up 7.8% from 2024. The Australian Bureau of Statistics found scam victimisation among people aged 15 and over fell from 3.1% to 2.7% in 2024-25. Their populations, periods and methods differ. [1][2]
This publication keeps those measures separate. It is Sceáwian’s analysis of published Australian data, not a proprietary survey or unsupported numerical score.
Where the known financial harm sits.
Investment scams remained the largest combined loss category. Payment redirection rose from $152.6 million in 2024 to $166.8 million in 2025. [1]
Calendar 2025, combined data from Scamwatch, ReportCyber, AFCX, IDCARE and ASIC. Reported losses do not equal all losses.
Three trails worth following.
Who changed the destination?
Payment redirection requires a joined timeline of invoices, supplier master data, mailbox access, approvals and transfers. ASD reports that business email compromise with financial loss made up 15% of self-reported business cybercrime threats in 2024-25. [1][3]
What was reused?
The ABS estimated 220,400 people experienced identity theft in 2024-25. The OAIC received 1,205 eligible data breach notifications in 2025. A breach and a later fraud need separate proof before they can be linked. [2][5]
What do the records show?
Commonwealth entities received or detected 14,323 internal fraud and corruption allegations in 2024-25. These are allegations, not proven cases. Evaluation versions, conflicts, permissions and approvals form the evidence trail. [6][8]
The corporate fraud trail starts inside the process.
Internal fraud can hide in ordinary decisions: a supplier record, a payroll change, an expense, a stock adjustment or a journal entry.
ASIC's 2025 review provides a rare Australian window into corporate reporting. Its 134 selected companies reported 8,095 disclosures through designated whistleblower channels in 2024-25. They assessed around 39% of disclosures, on average, as within the legal whistleblower framework; an average of 24% of investigated in-scope matters were substantiated. These are separate company averages, not a national fraud funnel. Disclosures included matters other than fraud. [14]
ASIC says these company responses were self-reported, not independently verified, and not a statistically representative measure of corporate Australia. Some companies' responses included employees outside Australia. The 8,095 is a count of channel disclosures, not proven fraud cases or a national estimate. [14]
Six investigative pathways / Sceáwian analysisInvoices and bank details
Trace supplier onboarding, duplicate invoices, changed payment details, approvals and beneficiary accounts.
Conflicts and contracts
Compare declarations, tender versions, evaluation scores, related parties and contract variations.
People and time
Reconcile employment records, rosters, allowances, payroll edits and bank-account history.
Cards and claims
Test receipts, merchant data, business purpose, split claims and approval relationships.
Stock and write-offs
Follow custody, returns, damaged goods, inventory adjustments, disposal and physical counts.
Management override
Review journal permissions, reconciliations, supporting contracts and evidence of challenge.
These pathways describe records to test, not the frequency of any scheme in Australia. The PDF provides the full investigative and board-level analysis.
A disclosure is a starting point, not a finding.
ASIC found 58% of its surveyed companies had not sought employee feedback on their whistleblower programme, 30% did not regularly review its effectiveness and 25% did not provide regular staff training. These are programme signals in a selected sample, not fraud prevalence rates. [14]
“The defensible outcome is a documented trail from report to evidence, response, finding and control repair.”
Boards should ask whether staff can raise concerns safely, whether evidence can be preserved promptly and whether allegations involving senior decision-makers are investigated independently. The report sets out a detailed intake-to-remediation sequence.
The limits are part of the finding.
The public data cannot support a reliable city-by-city fraud ranking or a national total for internal corporate fraud. Nor is there a current, comparable public national loss series for insurance fraud. The Index does not manufacture those figures. [1]-[6][11][12][14]
“A convincing map without comparable denominators would mislead readers.”
Instead, the report explains each source’s coverage, reports known patterns, and sets out practical investigation implications and a 2027 threat watchlist.
Developments to test, not forecast.
These are forward-looking Sceáwian risk judgements. They are scenarios to monitor, not measured 2027 outcomes.
- 01Synthetic authority through deepfake endorsements and spoof sites [7]
- 02Supplier-channel capture and payment redirection [1][3]
- 03Identity reuse after a notifiable breach [2][4][5]
- 04Connected recruitment and procurement misconduct [8][10]
- 05Cross-insurer claims anomalies requiring validation [11]
Published data, carefully separated.
The 22-page report reviews authoritative Australian sources available at 28 September 2026. It labels calendar-year, financial-year, survey and administrative measures, and explains ASIC's selected corporate sample separately. It does not add incompatible figures, infer an unreported national total or create a numerical Sceáwian score.
The PDF includes an executive summary, source-linked charts, consumer and business exposure, a four-page corporate chapter, identity crime, cyber-enabled deception, workplace and procurement integrity, insurance and geographic evidence gaps, investigative practice, a 2027 watchlist and full source notes.
Read the full methodology and 14-source directory →Choose a route through the evidence.
Inside business organisations
Whistleblower data, six internal fraud pathways and a defensible investigation sequence. →
Research notesMethod and primary sources
How each figure should be read, where the evidence stops and all 14 source links. →
Full publicationDownload the PDF
The illustrated 22-page report, including four pages on corporate risk. →
Read the full Index.
22 pages. Linked Australian primary sources. Designed for journalists, legal advisers, insurers, risk leaders and investigators.
Sceáwian Intelligence Group, 28 September 2026. General research and analysis; not legal advice.
Trace the primary record.
- [1] National Anti-Scam Centre / ACCC, Targeting Scams 2025.
- [2] ABS, Personal Fraud 2024-25.
- [3] ASD/ACSC, Annual Cyber Threat Report 2024-25.
- [4] AIC, Cybercrime in Australia 2025.
- [5] OAIC, 2025 Notifiable Data Breaches statistics.
- [6] AIC, Fraud and Corruption Against the Commonwealth 2024-25.
- [7] ASIC, warning on AI-enabled investment scams.
- [8] Commonwealth Fraud Prevention Centre, procurement counter-fraud toolkit.
- [10] NSW ICAC, Operation Tivoli.
- [11] Insurance Council of Australia, fraud-detection collaboration.
- [12] Insurance Council of Australia, insurance fraud.
- [14] ASIC, REP 827: Insights from the whistleblower questionnaire, 2024-25.
All source notes and limitations appear in the downloadable report.