Fraud uncovered in New Zealand last year rose to a record $100 million, a report by accounting firm KPMG reveals.
The figure was up from $70 million in 2008.
The report says there was a dramatic surge in the value of fraud uncovered in the second half of last year, with $76 million defrauded in that period.
KPMG Forensics partner Mark Leishman says the large jump in frauds involved a number of cases each worth millions of dollars, with many of the swindles starting long before the economic downturn.
He says fraudulent loans, tax evasion and accounting fraud were among the most common types.
Mr Leishman predicts even greater levels of fraud will be uncovered in the future.
"People have been committing frauds for some period of time and they will continue to commit them due to the financial pressures of the global financial crisis, so this really is just the start of things to come," he says.
Paragon Investigations director Ron McQuilter believes a few "time bombs" in corporate fraud will emerge this year.
Some of the fraud his company has found has been going on for between seven and 14 years, he says. The recession has been the catalyst for people checking for scams.
Northern Employers and Manufacturers Association chief executive Alasdair Thompson the increase is being driven by greed, not the recession.
For the second year in a row, the KPMG report found managers are more likely commit fraud than lower-level employees.
Two-thirds of the scams brought before the courts had been committed by a firm's worker, with the rest made up of people submitting fraudulent loan applications.
In 2008, KMPG found the recovery rates of stolen money was as low as 2%.
