White-collar crime widespread in Switzerland

Three-quarters of Swiss companies claim to be the victims of white-collar crime, costing them 8 billion Swiss francs (6.3 billion US dollars) annually, according to results of a survey released Wednesday.

But the majority of the 250 firms which took part in the study were unwilling to devote more than 50,000 Swiss francs (39,375 dollars) a year towards prevention measures, says the study.

Researched by KPMG Switzerland, a global provider of audit, tax and advisory services, deception offences topped the list of problems, affecting nearly half of the participants.

Bribery and corruption was in second place at 12 percent, followed by data theft and copyright violation (10 percent).

At the bottom of the list were sabotage or hacking and falsifying annual results or financial information (5 percent).

About a fifth of the participants thought that internal inadequacies within the system of controls were to blame for criminal activity, and more than three-quarters predicted that white-collar crime would rise in the future.

The Federal Police Office estimates that the value of such crimes is worth up to 4 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product.

Source: Xinhua