The ACFE Global Fraud Conference is the largest anti-fraud event in the world — and if you've never attended, it's bigger and more useful than most people expect. Run by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, the annual conference draws thousands of CFEs, forensic accountants, internal auditors, law enforcement professionals, and corporate compliance officers from across the globe. Whether you're pursuing your CFE credential, maintaining it, or simply staying sharp in a field that evolves every year, the conference is worth understanding before you commit the time and budget.
This guide covers what the ACFE conference is, what you'll actually get from attending, how CPE credits work, and how to prepare so you're not wandering around the convention floor wondering where your time went.
The ACFE Global Fraud Conference — often called the ACFE Annual Conference — is ACFE's flagship event, held once a year. It's been running for decades and has grown into a multi-day educational summit covering fraud prevention, detection, investigation techniques, forensic accounting, cybercrime, compliance, and anti-corruption strategy.
Attendees include CFEs at all career stages, from newly certified examiners to seasoned investigators with decades in the field. You'll find sessions led by practitioners — real investigators sharing real case studies — alongside academic researchers, government officials, and technology vendors showing the latest tools in fraud analytics and digital forensics.
The conference typically runs four to five days, with sessions organized by track. You pick the topics that match your work and your CPE needs. It's a self-directed experience, which means your return on investment depends heavily on how intentional you are about your schedule.
CPE (continuing professional education) is one of the primary reasons most working CFEs attend. The ACFE requires 20 CPE hours per year to maintain your CFE credential, and the annual conference can satisfy a large chunk of that requirement in a single week.
Sessions at the conference are pre-approved for CFE CPE credit. The number of hours you earn depends on how many sessions you attend and complete — the conference agenda typically lists CPE value for each session. Many attendees earn 25–30 or more CPE hours in a single conference, which more than covers the annual requirement.
If you hold other credentials — CPA, CIA, CISA, or similar — the ACFE conference sessions often qualify for CPE credit with those bodies as well. Check with your specific credentialing organization to confirm, but this stackability makes the conference especially valuable for professionals carrying multiple certifications.
Documentation is handled through the conference system. You'll receive a certificate of completion and a CPE record you can submit to ACFE or any other body requiring proof. Keep a copy — some organizations ask for documentation years after the fact.
The ACFE conference organizes content into focused tracks. Common tracks include fraud investigation techniques, financial crimes and money laundering, cybercrime and digital forensics, forensic accounting, internal audit and controls, compliance and ethics, and fraud risk management. The exact lineup shifts year to year based on what's most relevant — but those core areas remain consistent.
Deep-dive sessions run longer and go into significantly more detail than standard breakouts. If there's a specific skill area you're trying to build — cryptocurrency tracing, interview techniques, procurement fraud detection — targeting the deep-dives in that area is often more valuable than spreading across many shorter sessions.
The fraud-in-practice sessions are perennially popular. These feature active investigators walking through actual case studies — the fraud scheme, how it was detected, how the investigation unfolded, and what the outcome was. These sessions are dense with practical takeaways that translate directly to real investigations.
The formal sessions are only part of the value. The hallways, the exhibit floor, the meals, and the evening events are where a lot of the real networking happens — and anti-fraud is a relationship-driven field. Fraud investigation often requires reaching out to investigators in other industries or jurisdictions, and having a network of contacts who've already vetted you (or vice versa) matters.
Come with business cards or a digital equivalent. LinkedIn is common in this crowd, and adding connections in real time during or after sessions is an efficient way to stay organized. If you're targeting specific people — a speaker whose work you've followed, a practitioner in an industry you're trying to learn from — send a message before the conference and try to schedule a quick meeting. Most practitioners are more accessible at conferences than at any other time of year.
The ACFE also hosts networking events, receptions, and chapter gatherings during the conference. These are explicitly designed to facilitate introductions, which removes some of the awkwardness of cold networking. The international attendee population makes this especially valuable if your work has cross-border dimensions.
The attendees who get the most out of the ACFE conference are the ones who prepare. Here's how to approach it:
Map your CPE needs first. Know exactly how many hours you need and in which subject areas, if your credentialing body specifies categories. Then build your session schedule around those requirements before filling in with topics you're personally interested in.
Review the session catalog in advance. The full agenda is published well before the event. Read session descriptions carefully — not just titles. Two sessions can have similar names but very different content levels. If a session is listed as intermediate or advanced, make sure you have the background to benefit from it.
Set a networking goal. "Meet people" is too vague. Try something specific: make five substantive connections in your industry segment, or have conversations with two speakers whose sessions you attend. Specific goals make networking feel less random.
Use the ACFE app. The conference typically has a mobile app that organizes the schedule, lets you bookmark sessions, and facilitates attendee connections. Download it before you arrive and set up your profile — other attendees can message you through it.
The ACFE practice test on this site covers corruption, bribery schemes, and investigation techniques that appear in conference sessions — working through those questions beforehand gives you a stronger foundation for the more advanced content you'll encounter at the event.
ACFE also hosts regional training events throughout the year — smaller, one or two-day programs focused on specific topics. These are valuable for targeted skill-building between annual conferences. But they don't replicate the scope of the global event: the session variety, the networking density, and the CPE volume just aren't comparable.
If budget or travel constraints limit you to one ACFE event per year, the global conference typically offers better value. If you can attend multiple events, pairing the annual conference with one or two regional trainings that align with your specific investigative focus is an efficient approach to meeting your CPE requirements while building specific skills.
Many ACFE chapter members also access discounted conference registration through chapter membership — worth checking if you're a member. Chapters occasionally organize group travel as well, which can reduce costs further and creates a built-in cohort for networking during the conference.
A common mistake is over-scheduling. It's tempting to fill every time slot with a session, but that approach leads to mental fatigue by day two. Leave some breathing room — time between sessions to process what you heard, have conversations, and actually absorb the material. You'll retain more from 20 focused sessions than from 30 sessions you half-attended while exhausted.
Engage with speakers after their sessions. Most are willing to take questions informally if the room allows it, and that one-on-one conversation often yields insights that didn't make it into the formal presentation. Be specific in your questions — "how does this apply to procurement fraud in mid-sized manufacturers" gets a better response than "can you tell me more about what you do."
Take notes strategically. Don't try to transcribe everything — focus on actionable takeaways and specific examples you can apply to your work. A short list of three to five concrete things to implement from each session is far more valuable than ten pages of detailed notes you'll never read again.
The vendor floor deserves a walkthrough, even if you're not currently in a buying position. The tools vendors are selling reveal what practitioners are trying to solve — data analytics platforms, case management systems, forensic software. Understanding the market gives you a clearer picture of where fraud investigation is heading, which matters for your long-term career development even if none of it is immediately actionable.
Finally, follow up within a week of returning. Reach out to the connections you made, send a thank-you to any speakers who gave you particularly useful time, and review your session notes while the context is fresh. The conference experience decays quickly without that intentional follow-through.