"While on the whole I agree that fraud tends to go up during challenging economic times, I do need to be slightly contrarian and offer up a few alternative hypotheses and thoughts, just to keep people thinking. 1) It is generally accepted, based on data from the National Bureau of Economic Research (summary at CNN:http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/01/news/economy/recession/index.htm) that the current recession began in December 2007, which would suggest the rate of change between 2007 and 2008 is most relevant (and 2009 even more so) as most of 2007 was relatively healthy from an economic perspective. Similarly, the numbers suggest a potential slight downward trend for the first half of 2009. 2) There is a question over whether check kiting (or fraud in general) is a leading or trailing economic indicator. I'm not sure there has been a substantial amount of quantitative research in this area, but I think we could reasonably conclude that those on the margin who would commit fraud in tough economic times would not do so until they begin to feel the effects, which would suggest a trailing indicator. As such, the rise from 2006 to 2007 would probably be attributable to other factors. 3) Overall, the numbers show the SAR filings in general are also growing, so an absolute increase in kiting SARs does not directly suggest an increase in overall prevalence of kiting - though the data shows that actual growth in kiting reports is greater than the growth in overal SAR filings, it could also be that kiting is either getting better reporting, or is just rising to larger dollar levels requiring reporting. 4) A question related to the last clause above - is kiting increasing in prevalence or value/size or proper classification (or some combination)? It would seem that those on the margin will commit smaller dollar frauds during challenging economic times - probably often less than required for reporting. Do those not on the margin become more bold and commit larger crimes during difficult economies? Again, not to be contrarian just for the sake of it, but it seems the SAR numbers do not provide the depth, breadth, context or clarity to draw actionable conclusions on their own. Unfortunately, this report is one of the best available, but we must be careful to appreciate the nuances of the stats. That said, not being directly involved in the fraud industry any more, would be very curious to hear from some bankers. "