Key Insights From the ACFE Fraud Conference Europe
/The 2026 ACFE Fraud Conference Europe held in Prague and virtually focused less on defining new threats and more on understanding why they are becoming harder to catch. The region's premier anti-fraud event attracts industry leaders, decision-makers and influencers from the public and private sectors to join the conversation.
Across sessions, the key challenge identified was not a lack of information. Rather, it is how often fraud is hidden in plain sight and spread across people, systems and technologies that are not immediately connected.
Themes That Emerged
Listening, Not Just Questioning, Drives Better Investigations
In the opening general session, Richard Mullender, a former hostage negotiator, challenged the idea that interview success relies solely on asking the right questions. Instead, he championed the importance of listening with intent to analyze tone, gaps and how an interview unfolds, rather than simply moving through a script.
That perspective carried into sessions on behavioral indicators where speakers emphasized how much information sits beyond direct answers. Stress, hesitation and inconsistency often reveal far more than a straightforward response.
Key takeaway: Slow the interview down enough to catch what is easy to overlook.
Fraud is Becoming Harder to See and Easier to Scale
Several sessions showed how quickly fraud can take shape without leaving obvious traces. Deepfake-enabled schemes, AI-generated communications and identity manipulation are no longer theoretical — they are now part of active, responsive investigating.
In one session, investigators demonstrated how a suspect’s identity can be reconstructed using open-source intelligence. In another, the presenters explored how misconduct is moving beyond email into new, less structured channels.
Discussions on money mule networks and document fraud made clear how often activity is distributed across multiple actors. What appears isolated is often part of a larger scheme.
Key takeaway: Patterns are priorities within systems. Keep looking.
Technology is Accelerating Both Investigations and Threats
AI continues to be a focal point of modern fraud investigation and examination, but rarely in a simple, generalized way.
Several sessions focused on how AI and data analytics are improving investigative work, particularly for smaller teams looking to increase efficiency and consistency. Other experts examined how the tools enhancing fraud prevention and detection efforts are also being used to create more convincing fraud schemes, from synthetic identities to large-scale takeovers.
Ramsés Gallego, a technologist with decades of experience in cybersecurity and risk, described this as a shifting balance of motive, means and opportunity. As each element changes, so does the level of exposure. Gallego emphasized the need for controls to keep pace with this movement.
Key takeaway: Any tool that improves detection should also be evaluated as a potential threat.
Culture and Internal Dynamics Still Shape Risk
While external threats are becoming more complex, several sessions turned attention inward.
Discussions on internal fraud and behavioral indicators highlighted how often misconduct develops in environments where it is quietly accepted or overlooked. Tobias Sturesson, a leadership expert focused on organizational culture, challenged the idea that fraud is driven only by individual decisions, pointing instead to the influence of informal norms and unspoken expectations.
Understanding those dynamics can help explain how an issue was able to develop in the first place.
Key takeaway: Examine the environment, in addition to the incident, when assessing risk.
Fraud Rarely Remains Contained
Pavla Holcová, an investigative journalist with the Organized Crime and Corruption Project (OCCRP) who has contributed to major cross-border investigation including the Panama Papers, offered a broad perspective.
Her investigation into the murder of Jan Kuciak revealed connections between corruption, organized crime and political systems in Slovakia. The impact of this case extended beyond financial loss, affecting public trust and prompting a wider societal response.
That same pattern appeared in sessions on global fraud, regulatory change and collaboration. Fraud does not operate with clean boundaries, and responding to it requires coordination across organizations, sectors and jurisdictions.
Key takeaway: Plan investigations with an expectation that there is potential for them (and their impact) to extend beyond silos.
Why It Matters
The conversations in Prague pointed to clear shifts in the anti-fraud landscape. As we know, fraud is less likely to present as a single, obvious event.
Threats are fragmented across systems, buried in communications and shaped by environments. For fraud examiners, the work is not just in identifying these red flags but connecting them.
And as these challenges continue to span borders, technologies and institutions, the importance of shared insight becomes even greater. Events like the ACFE Fraud Conference Europe are part of a broader effort to strengthen the profession globally.
