Detect fraud with service vouchers
We support public officers with the detection of fraud in a business field where the government offers subsidies.
We’ve created a tool for the Flemish government (WSE) to detect fraud with service vouchers. It is known that fraud occurs, and the question was whether we can use the existing data to support the officers better in the field.
Numbers show that more fraud is discovered thanks to the digital fraud detection
2015: 33% of the inspections detects fraud
2018: 60 % of the inspections detects fraud
2018: even more inspections were done , 253 inspections and 515 fraud cases were found
2018: 48 inspections, traced $3 million
One tool for fraud detection and tool signalisation
When the digital fraud system signals possible fraud cases, specific inspections are followed. This all happens in one place, the tool we’ve created, based on NEO4J technology.
The data is initially analyzed using standard outlier-detection techniques in regression models. Having 11 known fraud cases within the data set allowed us to test model hypotheses. This yielded good models for most of the known fraud cases, but some remained under the radar.
We extended the research into the time and connection domains. We built time series to find behavioural patterns in time, and outliers thereof. This allowed a refinement of the detection model, but still missed two important known frauds.
The final step was to connect all data and build an interaction graph of all connected entities in the data model. This was done using a specialized graph database and apply graph analytics on it.
Outcome: These analyses actually have a broad application in business cases.
The result was astonishing; not only were the two remaining known fraud cases clearly picked out, a lot of other candidate cases showed up.
A tool for the officers, with which they can play around in a multi-dimensional domain model and they can then focus their field visits on the peculiarities from the model.
“Thanks to this approach, we can now detect twice as much fraud as we did before.”
— cabinet Muyters in "De Tijd". July 4th 2019