Fraud is a debilitating factor that affects business growth and continues to be a major problem for many organizations (Albrecht, Albrecht, & Albrecht, 2006). Ernst and Young (2009) defines fraud as an act of deliberate action made by an entity, knowing that such action can result in a possession of unlawful benefits. Jacob (2013) identified fraud red flags as situation where employees are living beyond their means, experiencing financial hardships, increasingly being secretive about their

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... ssional activities, divorce/family problems unusually close association with vendors or customer, irritability, suspiciousness or defensiveness, employee's refusal for advancement/ leave. Anwar (2014) asserts that although, there is a dire need to eliminate fraud, there is no ultimate solution to fraud. Statement of Problem Fraud is a major issue facing companies, governments and organizations. Every year huge sums of money are lost because of fraud (European Federation of Accountants, 2005). Due to lack of sophisticated internal control system, it may be easier to perpetrate fraud in small business compared to large ones (European Federation of Accountants, 2005). Fraud can have devastating effect on small businesses. These organizations typically have smaller resources to both prevent and recover from a fraud, and they often need an increased level of trust in employees due to a lower ability to institute robust anti-fraud controls (ACFE, 2018). Small businesses typically have fewer anti-fraud controls than larger organizations leaving them more vulnerable to fraud (ACFE, 2018). Thanasak (2013) states that before making any efforts to reduce fraud and manage the risks proactively, it is important for the business organizations to identify the factors leading to fraudulent behavior by understanding who are the fraudsters, when and why frauds are committed. The cost of fraud to SMEs is not easy to quantify as many causes are either undetected or unreported. Employees perpetrate most fraud cases (European Federation of Accountants, 2005). Objectives of the Study The principal objective of this study was to evaluate fraud management among owners of SMEs. Other aims of the study include: examination of the causes of fraud, ascertaining the factors that may indicate that fraud is being perpetrated, determination of what SME owners do when they discover fraud, and examination of Internal Control measures that can be adopted to mitigate or reduce fraud.