The CFE Credential and This Course

What the CFE is

The Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) credential is awarded by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), a professional body for anti-fraud work based in the United States. A CFE is expected to prevent, detect and investigate fraud: to understand how schemes work, to gather and analyse evidence, to interview people, to work within the law and to help organisations reduce the risk of fraud.

CFEs work as internal auditors, forensic accountants, investigators in companies and government, compliance officers, law enforcement officers and consultants. The credential is broad on purpose. A CFE should be able to read a set of accounts, plan an investigation, conduct a fair interview, explain the rules of evidence to a manager and design a fraud risk assessment.

What this course does

This course follows the structure of the ACFE’s current CFE Exam, which changed on 2 June 2026 from four sections to three. Each module covers part of that outline at the depth an advanced candidate needs: how schemes are built and concealed, how an examiner would detect them, which legal rules apply and which control would have stopped them.

Every practice question in this course was written for this course. None is a real exam question, and none is "recalled" from anyone’s exam. The questions copy the style of a professional exam — a short situation and four choices — so that you practise reading carefully and choosing the best answer.

This course does not promise a pass. Your result depends on your study, your practice and the exam on the day.

Who this course is for

The course is labelled advanced. It assumes you can read basic financial statements and that you have some working experience in accounting, audit, investigation, law, compliance or a similar field. It does not assume you have studied fraud before, but it moves quickly. Each lesson asks you to judge a case, choose between options or spot the weak point in a plan, because that is what the exam asks.

The law topics are based on the United States, because the CFE Exam tests United States law on legal questions. If you work elsewhere, learn the United States rules for the exam and check your own country’s law for your daily work.