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In the hit 2002 film Catch Me If You Can, Leonardo DiCaprio brought to the big screen the notorious real life story of Frank Abagnale, Jr., a youthful con artist who, all before his 19th birthday, successfully scammed millions of dollars worth of checks through meticulous forgeries and elaborate impersonations.

Although most would place Catch Me If You Can in the film genre of real-life drama, for small business owners, the story of Frank Abagnale is the stuff horror movies are made of. And that’s easy to understand, given that most security analysts contend that small businesses are most vulnerable to fraud in all its forms.

Small Businesses Are Biggest Bulls-Eyes for Fraudsters

Incredibly, 1 out of 4 businesses have experienced some degree of fraud, with 45 percent of all documented incidents related to check fraud. The average loss to a small business in these cases is about $50, 000. In fact 30 percent of all fraud cases committed in the workplace occurred in businesses with fewer than 100 employees, with a median loss of $150, 000.

Illustrating in great detail how truth is ultimately stranger than fiction, today there is arguably no one who serves as a greater champion for check fraud prevention than Frank Abagnale, who, after being sentenced to twelve years in prison, founded Abagnale & Associates, which advises businesses on fraud. Remarkably, Abagnale also works for the FBI, teaching at the FBI Academy and lecturing for FBI field offices throughout the U.S.

“Check fraud is a huge, growing problem, ” Abagnale told Intuit. “It’s gone from $12.6 billion to now more than $20 billion in just ten years.”

“75 percent of all payments made to another company are made in the form of a check, ” he says, “so as long as there’s an opportunity to forge, alter, and counterfeit checks, there are going to be people willing to take that opportunity with very little risk.”

According to Abagnale, it’s imperative for small business owners in particular to take any and all precautions to safeguard their accounting and check-writing processes.