ACFE Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) Exam Prep

What you will be able to do

• Identify occupational fraud schemes: asset misappropriation and corruption
• Detect financial statement fraud and other financial crimes including money laundering
• Recognise cyberfraud and technology-enabled financial crime
• Apply the legal framework governing fraud examinations and evidence
• Plan and conduct investigations: interviews, evidence, and tracing
• Design fraud prevention, deterrence, and risk assessment programmes
• Pass timed practice sections aligned to the 2026 three-section structure

What is inside

4 modules, 16 lessons. Each module ends in a graded quiz.

1. 01

   Occupational Fraud: Asset Misappropriation and Corruption

   Covers the fraud schemes and financial crimes domain at the scheme level, from the ACFE Fraud Tree and the fraud triangle through cash misappropriation, fraudulent disbursements, and corruption. You will learn to classify a scenario to the correct branch and scheme, name the concealment method the perpetrator is forced to use, and identify the control or analytic that exposes it. Every lesson ends with exam style checks that demand precision between schemes that look alike on the surface.

   4 lessons · 15 quiz questions

2. 02

   Financial Statement Fraud and Other Financial Crimes

   Completes the Fraud Schemes and Financial Crimes domain by moving from theft of assets to distortion of reported results and to the wider financial crimes a CFE is expected to recognize. You will learn the five financial statement fraud method families and the analytical techniques that expose them, the three stages of money laundering with the anti money laundering obligations that sit on top of them, and the schemes found in lending, insurance, healthcare, bankruptcy, and securities markets. The final lesson covers cyberfraud, technology enabled financial crime, and the use and governance of artificial intelligence in fraud detection.

   4 lessons · 15 quiz questions

3. 03

   Conducting Fraud Investigations and Navigating Legal Issues

   Covers the fraud investigations and legal issues domain from end to end, beginning with predication and the fraud theory approach and moving through evidence rules, chain of custody, documentary and public record research, data analytics, digital forensics, and the tracing of illicit funds. It then teaches the full interview sequence, from the informational interview through behavioral assessment to the admission-seeking interview and the signed statement. The final lesson places all of that work inside the legal system, comparing criminal and civil procedure, the individual rights and privacy laws that constrain an investigation, and the standards governing reports and expert testimony.

   4 lessons · 15 quiz questions

4. 04

   Fraud Prevention, Deterrence, and Ethics

   Covers Fraud Prevention and Deterrence, the third and shortest section of the CFE Exam, which carries roughly 22.6 percent of the total questions. You will learn why trusted people offend, how to build and run a fraud risk management program on the joint COSO and ACFE model, how governance, internal controls, compliance programs, and whistleblower channels fit together, and what the CFE Code of Professional Ethics requires and forbids. Every lesson ends with exam style checks that force precision between concepts that sound alike.

   4 lessons · 15 quiz questions