Further, the authors find that successful concealment often leads investigators down blind
alleys. For example, auditors track down and examine multiple red flags that provide little
diagnostic value related to the fraud being perpetrated. Examination of the means by which
financial crime is concealed is limited in accounting research (see Beasley et al. 1999; Beasley et al.
2010; Knapp 2010), yet concealment is a characteristic most aligned with fraudulent intent and
determining that a fraud as opposed to an error has occurred. The above discussions offer insight
and a framework for accounting researchers to initiate examination of concealment.