A Louder Whistle
How to gather, assess, and investigate whistleblower claims
August 2, 2024
Reading Time: 7 minutes
Key Takeaways:
Whistleblower tips detect 43% of occupational fraud cases, making trusted reporting channels a critical part of fraud risk management.
Effective whistleblower programs offer secure web, email, phone, and internal reporting options so employees and third parties can speak up safely.
A low number of whistleblower reports may signal underreporting, limited program awareness, or fear of retaliation — not necessarily a low-risk workplace.
Prompt triage, evidence preservation, independent investigations, and clear escalation procedures help organizations respond to fraud allegations defensibly.
Pinkerton EPIC services help organizations strengthen whistleblower readiness, investigate sensitive claims, and turn findings into practical risk-reduction actions.
The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) recently released the 14th edition of its global fraud study, Occupational Fraud 2026: A Report to the Nations, drawing on 2,402 cases from 143 countries and territories. The statistics confirm a persistent reality: occupational fraud remains a significant and costly problem for organizations worldwide.
The findings underscore that no industry is immune to fraud, but manufacturing, financial institutions (both traditional banking and fintech companies), healthcare, and government and public administration are especially prone to fraud. Fraud risk can also emerge through employees, leaders, contractors, vendors, customers, and other third parties — creating financial, operational, legal, and reputational exposure.
The typical fraud case doesn't look like a dramatic heist. According to ACFE's 2026 findings, most schemes are carried out by someone the organization trusts — an employee with legitimate access who exploits that trust quietly, often for well over a year, before anyone notices. Losses tend to compound the longer a scheme runs undetected, and internal controls alone routinely fail to catch it in time. What actually stops fraud, more often than any audit or control, is a person choosing to speak up. That's why the strength of an organization's whistleblower program — how easy it is to report a concern, how seriously that concern is handled, and how quickly it's acted on — is one of the most important fraud defenses a company can build.
Platforms and Partnership
Tips are responsible for 43% of occupational fraud detection, so organizations need to be ready — proactive and responsive — when people raise concerns. An effective whistleblower program requires more than a phone number (whistleblower hotline) or email address: it needs accessible reporting channels, confidence that concerns will be handled fairly, clear non-retaliation safeguards, timely triage, and an appropriate investigative response. Building that foundation starts with the reporting channel itself — the entry point where everything else depends on people feeling safe enough to come forward in the first place.
Many smaller and mid-sized organizations may not have a whistleblower reporting system in place at all. For larger companies — and those that already have a reporting structure — a good first step is assessing whether their information-gathering infrastructure is accessible, trusted, and positioned to support a consistent response.
ACFE's 2026 data shows how people report fraud:
Web-based forms: 46% of cases
Email: 34%
Phone: 23%
Organizations should consider multiple reporting options — including secure web forms, phone lines, email, manager escalation, and HR or compliance pathways — so employees and relevant stakeholders can raise concerns in a way that's practical and appropriate for them.
A trusted and experienced security partner can help build that framework, or assess and improve an existing one, identifying any gaps or shortcomings along the way. The right partner should also advise on a response process for screening, managing, and responding to tips as they come in — one with clear protocols for acknowledging a report, assessing urgency, preserving relevant information, assigning ownership, and escalating high-risk matters. That objectivity becomes especially valuable when allegations involve coworkers, senior leaders, sensitive personnel issues, conflicts of interest, external vendors, or cross-border operations. In these circumstances, an independent security team can conduct a fact-based, objective inquiry and help determine what did—and did not—occur.
Common Issues and Liabilities
In one recent case, a company seeking whistleblower support had several thousand employees with access to their existing reporting system, which garnered just one report in the last calendar year. That may be a red flag. A low volume of reports can reflect a healthy culture, but it can also indicate a lack of program awareness, inaccessible reporting channels, uncertainty about confidentiality, or a lack of confidence that people will be treated fairly when they speak up.
The question for decision-makers cannot be simply, "How many reports did we receive?" The real question is whether employees and other stakeholders know how to report concerns, trust the process, understand how confidentiality will be handled, and believe their concerns will receive appropriate follow-up.
That trust often comes down to one issue in particular: retaliation. Understanding whistleblower rights and anti-retaliation obligations helps organizations respond appropriately to good-faith reports and reduce legal and reputational risk — but just as important, retaliation should be treated as a core program-risk issue, not an afterthought.
NAVEX benchmark data found that retaliation reports represented a median 3.08% of reports in 2024, up from 0.62% in 2009. Clear non-retaliation expectations, manager training, consistent follow-up, and appropriate monitoring after a report can help sustain trust in the reporting process.
Response speed also matters. Organizations should establish a structured process for acknowledging reports, assessing immediate safety, legal, financial, or reputational risk, preserving relevant evidence, and promptly escalating matters that require specialized support.
The evolving enforcement landscape further highlights the value of a well-defined whistleblower response process. The U.S. Department of Justice's Corporate Whistleblower Awards Pilot Program encourages individuals to report certain types of corporate criminal misconduct.
When a whistleblower reports internally and also submits information to the DOJ, a company may remain eligible for a presumption of declination under the DOJ's Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy if it self-reports the conduct within 120 days of receiving the internal report and satisfies the policy's other requirements. Organizations should consult qualified legal counsel to understand how these requirements may apply to their circumstances.
Taking action
Once a complaint, concern, or allegation is received, the role of an expert security partner is to contextualize, assess, and evaluate the potential validity of the information. Key questions include:
Who are the subjects involved?
What is the nature of the reported activity?
What jurisdiction applies, and how does that affect the scope of the investigation?
Does the concern involve an immediate safety issue, potential financial loss, workplace misconduct, insider risk, a third party, or regulatory exposure?
An effective response process moves through five connected stages:
Receive and protect the report — acknowledge the concern and safeguard the reporter's confidentiality from the outset.
Triage and scope the concern — use the questions above to determine urgency, jurisdiction, and likely investigative scope.
Investigate independently, where appropriate — this stage often begins with due diligence: open-source research, discreet fieldwork, public records checks, and direct inquiries. A security team can build profiles of the people and institutions involved and map connections between employees, clients, and vendors.
From there, the investigation itself typically includes document review, computer forensics to recover digital evidence like emails, and forensic accounting and investigations to reconstruct transactions — followed by interviews with subjects, witnesses, and others who may have useful information.
The scope should stay proportionate to the allegation, its potential impact, the relevant jurisdiction, and applicable legal requirements. Because interviews and fieldwork often produce the most valuable findings, it's worth working with a partner who has proven investigative capability and hands-on field experience.Resolve and remediate identified issues — once findings are confirmed, organizations need a clear path to address the underlying problem, which may include personnel action, policy changes, financial recovery, or reporting obligations to regulators or law enforcement.
Strengthen controls and reduce recurrence — findings should feed back into training, monitoring, and process improvements so similar issues are less likely to happen again.
Tips remain the single most effective way for organizations and their security partners to identify and address fraud, which makes managing whistleblower concerns an urgent priority for decision-makers. With a trusted security partner, organizations can optimize their reporting system, ensure they're effectively analyzing incoming information, and conduct investigations that produce actionable risk intelligence, defensible findings, and practical improvements to controls, processes, and organizational resilience.
When a concern is raised, the quality of an organization’s response can be as consequential as the concern itself. Pinkerton’s EPIC approach helps organizations assess reporting and escalation processes, investigate sensitive allegations objectively and discreetly, and turn findings into practical measures that strengthen resilience. Connect with us to discuss your organization’s whistleblower readiness and investigative-response needs.
Updated September 2026
SOURCES
Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. Occupational Fraud 2026: A Report to the Nations. 2026, www.acfe.com/fraud-resources/report-to-the-nations. Accessed 1 Sept. 2026.
NAVEX. “Signals Show Heightened Stress on Workplace Cultures.” NAVEX, 5 Mar. 2026, www.navex.com/en-us/blog/article/signals-show-heightened-stress-on-workplace-cultures/. Accessed 1 Sept. 2026.
United States, Department of Justice, Criminal Division. “Corporate Enforcement.” U.S. Department of Justice, updated 10 Mar. 2026, www.justice.gov/criminal/criminal-division-corporate-enforcement. Accessed 1 Sept. 2026.
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