IIA-Australia recently attended the Corruption Prevention Network (https://corruptionprevention.net/) in their annual forum in September 2025. Our member and former IIA-Australia President, Stephen Horne, contributed to the presentations and reminded us of a useful approach to preventing fraud in an organisation.
This approach has come about in considering the nature of individuals who commit fraud and their motivations. In the end, fraud is committed by people, and it is worthwhile looking at the behaviour of the person to determine the best mitigation strategies.
ICAC has previously shared the concept that fraudsters can be considered as “meat eaters” or “grass eaters” in their investigation reports. This is a simple approach which helps to consider their different motivations but also the different controls that can assist to deter them. In fact, this idea was first made in the 1972 Knapp Report into police corruption in New York City which coined the terms “meat-eater” and “grass-eater” respectively to characterise the two types of fraudsters:
Grass Eaters: these are the opportunistic fraudsters who are mostly harmless but take the opportunity to commit fraud if presented to them. This loosely represents about 80% of those who commit fraud. The risks associated with Grass Eaters are best mitigated with preventative controls. They are often fraudsters of convenience!
Meat Eaters: these are the fraudsters who set out looking for prey. They cover the remaining 20% of those who commit fraud. Fraud by this group of people is best identified by detective controls, as they more likely go out of their way to evade controls and cover the truth. They intend to do harm!
An organisation needs to consider different strategies in their approach towards mitigating fraud risk to address both types of individuals.
Grass eaters are deterred by these strategies:
- Controls: close the gates of opportunity to commit fraud
- Culture: reinforce that fraud is not tolerated and there are consequences for this.
Meat eaters on the other hand, are deterred by different strategies.
- Controls: ensure there is monitoring and review to detect fraud. This includes the close monitoring budgets and using analytics to interrogate data. Robust employee screening in recruitment is critical to see if history shows an individual’s pattern of behaviour.
- Culture: ensure effective Whistleblowing policy and processes are in place to allow others to report the meat eater.
The Corruption Prevention Network supports anti-fraud and corruption prevention practitioners throughout the state of NSW, to better understand the current issues and techniques in today’s market place and bridge the gap between public and private sectors by highlighting risks that span both industries.