The number of serious fraud cases coming to court in the UK hit a record high over the first six months of the year, it has been revealed.
KPMG's Fraud Barometer shows that more than 160 cases involving sums of over £100,000 passed through UK courts during the first half of the year - the highest level in the barometer's 21-year history.
The total value of these cases was £636 million and if this is replicated over the last six months of the year then this too would be the highest figure recorded by the index.
Hitesh Patel, partner at KPMG Forensic, warned that worse is to come.
He said: "It will be a number of years before the impact of the recession fully feeds through into the fraud statistics.
"Hard times mean more people driven to fraud by personal pressures, and more investors willing to believe in cooked up investment schemes."
Recently, BDO Stoy Hayward predicted that fraud levels are set to treble during the recession.
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