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Corporate Risk Intelligence
Detecting Procurement Fraud Early
Procurement fraud is a pattern before it is an event. The pattern is usually already in the organisation's own data.
7 min read · Alpha Intel Advisory
Indicators in Existing Data
No external enquiry is needed to notice these.
- One vendor winning consistently across unrelated categories
- Orders split just below an approval threshold
- Rising volumes with a vendor that has no capacity growth
- Repeated emergency or single-source purchases from the same supplier
- Invoices approved outside the normal sequence or timing
Before Anyone Is Confronted
Preserve records and access logs, restrict knowledge of the concern to a small group, and establish the external facts — ownership, capacity, relationships — before an internal conversation takes place.
The Objective
A defensible account of what occurred, who was involved, the quantified exposure where determinable, and the control failure that permitted it.
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