Financial fraud remains a persistent feature of modern financial systems despite regulatory reforms and strengthened governance frameworks. While prior studies have examined specific fraud mechanisms, a structured understanding of the intellectual architecture of elite fraud scholarship remains limited. This study employs science mapping techniques to examine financial fraud research published in ABDC A and A* business, accounting, and finance journals between 2000 and 2025. Following a PRISMA-based screening process, a corpus of 160 high-quality articles was analysed using co-word, thematic, and co-citation methods. The results reveal a concentrated intellectual structure anchored in four dominant domains: financial reporting manipulation, governance and monitoring failures, audit and external assurance mechanisms, and capital market misconduct. Earnings management and abnormal accrual research constitute the central backbone of the field, with governance and audit quality functioning as key monitoring mechanisms. Insider trading research appears comparatively peripheral, and digital or fintech-enabled fraud remains underrepresented within elite journals. The study develops a higher-order taxonomy of financial fraud and identifies structural gaps, including limited behavioural integration and insufficient attention to technological fraud mechanisms. By mapping the conceptual foundations of fraud research, this review provides clarity for scholars, regulators, and practitioners and outlines future research directions necessary for addressing evolving financial misconduct.