'Fraud - no, it could never happen to us'

Anthony Williams was the Deputy Director of Finance for Scotland Yard. He was responsible for managing the account used for funding anti-terrorist activities. Over a 5 year period he stole around £5 million pound by falsifying vouchers for payments to informants. In fact nearly 70% of the expenditure for that account was misappropriated by Williams!

The following are some of the things that could happen to you.

And they could be happening right now!

THEFT OF ASSETS

Including the unauthorised removal of intellectual capital and information. For example:

• Theft, embezzlement, false accounting and deception

• Theft or misuse of proprietary information

• malingering and theft of time paid by your company

• commercial deception by suppliers, customers, and others

CORRUPTION

The payment or receipt of any unauthorised benefit to or by your employee  for doing, or not doing something in relation to their work. Examples include;

• Acceptance by your employee of cash for influencing a decision made on behalf of your business

• Payment of club membership for an employee of a supplier in return for favourable treatment.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Where employees have private, undisclosed interests that could interfere with their work and fiduciary obligations to you. For example;

• Engaging in part-time work or consultancy without permission

• Using commercially sensitive company information for personal benefit, such as insider dealing

• Drug or alcohol abuse affecting work performance

FALSE REPORTING or FALSIFYING PERFORMANCE

This includes both the creation of false reports and  the suppression of material information. For example;

• Submitting false accounts to conceal inadequate performance or to qualify for a bonus

• Using false accounts to deceive creditors,  investors, bankers, The Stock Exchange, or any third party

• Suppression of regulatory and other breaches of false reporting, such as; falsely reporting compliance with environmental, anti discriminatory or other regulatory requirements; fraudulently concealing violation of money laundering, health and safety, Human Rights or other regulations.

TECHNOLOGY ABUSE

This includes unauthorised access to computer systems, implanting viruses or other malicious code, and sabotage. Examples include;

• Accessing computer files without authority

• Unauthorised internet browsing

• Computer related fraud

Did you know that according to statistics your business could be loosing between 2% and 6% of turnover through fraud.

Your first step to mitigating the risk is to take an ACFE Fraud Prevention Checkup