Detecting Fraud in Organizations: Techniques, Tools, and Resources

Preface

IN WRITING THIS BOOK, MY goal was to keep the subject matter as simple and straightforward as possible. This book is designed to get you thinking about fraud from a new perspective, with a focus on people and proactive thinking.

When people in organizations put their own self-interest (greed) above the interests of others, it creates an atmosphere conducive to fraud. The FBI’s fiscal year 2010–2011 Financial Crimes Report to the Public states that “corporate fraud matters involving self-dealing by corporate executives, particularly utilizing companies to perpetrate large-scale, high-yield fraud schemes, continue to be an issue of concern.”1 The focus of this book is the people in today’s organizations and identifying how and where the value in those organizations is exposed to fraud.

I have spent more than 30 years in the accounting field in various positions. From my experiences and observations, I have learned that fraudsters ultimately give themselves away, through guilt, stupidity, or the obvious dissipation of assets. I have seen fraud perpetrated by the most unlikely person as well as by the most likely person in an organization. I have seen fraud in government, in private and public organizations, and domestically and internationally. One common theme has permeated my experiences of dealing with fraud: people are involved. As long as there are people with an access to something of value, the need to combat fraud will exist.

My mission in writing this book was to ...