Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation (BCCEC) partners with KRyS Global for Economic Crime Survey

The Tribune–The Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation (BCCEC) has joined with accounting firm KRyS Global to launch an Economic Crime Survey for the Bahamas.

The survey, designed to provide information on the true state of economic crime in the Bahamas, and uncover new trends, will be dispatched to all BCCEC members via e-mail tomorrow. The date for all replies to be received is July 12, 2011.

“The Chamber feels that this survey is timely, as we are seeing an increase in crime for numerous reasons, the recession being just one of them,” said BCCEC chief executive, Winston Rolle.

“We also feel that the survey will provide valuable feedback on the economic impact of crime as we move to shape future programmes in our Crime Division to help businesses mitigate their potential risk to all types of crime.”

Mr Rolle said the BCCEC had worked with KRyS Global to develop and tailor the questions, the latter having administered similar surveys in other jurisdictions.

Questions

The survey features 87 questions broken down into 48 economic questions; eight retail questions; eight internal fraud questions; three money laundering questions; and 20 physical/property questions.

It is aiming to discover just how prevalent misappropriation, bribery, cheque and credit card fraud, debit card fraud, corruption, cyber crime, identity theft, insurance fraud, money laundering and theft have become. The survey is also seeking to determine their true impact on Bahamian businesses.

Ed Rahming, managing director of KRyS Global, said the survey’s findings would assist Bahamian businesses in “planning their own controls”.

“Although the focus in the Bahamas in recent months has turned primarily to violent and other traditional forms of crime, economic crime is still highly relevant during the current recession due to the potential magnitude of losses, the significance of any loss to a business whose profit margins are thin or non-existent already, and the likely increased motivation of perpetrators to commit economic crime,” Mr Rahming said.