Insider fraud is most commonly detected in companies through a tip, either from an employee, a customer, a vendor, or an outside party. Anonymous hotlines are excellent tools for reporting fraud, but management must have a plan for evaluating these tips. Some tipsters are okay with revealing their identities from …
How do you investigate fraud in a cash business? It is difficult because cash leaves no paper trail. But Tracy Coenen has some techniques she uses to try to uncover unreported cash sales. She gives examples including restaurants and laundromats. Tracy mentions some of the things she analyzes like credit …
Performing analytical review on the financial statements of a company is an important part in the fraud detection process. It can help detect manipulation of the numbers, as we are looking at account balances and their relationships to one another. How have account balances changed from period to period? How …
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Julia Haart, the star of the Netflix series My Unorthodox Life, her divorce from Silvio Scaglia, and the argument over their company Elite World Group. It all started when Haart was fired from her position of CEO of Elite World Group on …
Andrew Wiederhorn, CEO of the company that owns Fatburger, Johnny Rockets, and Round Table Pizza restaurants is under federal investigation for securities fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion. What makes this story so interesting is that Wiederhorn already did a stint in prison, serving 14 months in 2005 …
Document management is critical in any fraud investigation. Larger cases mean more documents, so the process of managing them is even more important (and maybe more complicated). Part of the document management process is preserving original evidence so that it may someday be used in court. While an investigator often …
Have you ever wondered how someone defrauds a business of a bunch of money, and then gets hired by another company that gives the person authority over money so they can embezzle all over again? Me too! This Milwaukee-area story caught my eye last week. Jason Matthews has been charged …
The same day Julia Haart, star of Netflix reality series “My Unorthodox Life,” was accused of illegally withdrawing $850,000 from an account at Elite World Group, she filed for divorce from her husband Silvio Scaglia. Haart was the CEO of Elite World Group, a company that is run by Scaglia. …
How do you start a financial investigation? What would you look at first when analyzing a business? Tracy Coenen talks about some of the important things she would evaluate when starting a case with financial statements and income tax returns.
In some ways, it seems like fraud has gotten easier in the age of the internet. People can hack into databases and get access to information they never could have gotten unless they traveled somewhere and physically broken into a building. Electronic banking and the ease of purchasing things on …
