Employee Theft Case
NZ Listed Company had detected over $70,000 worth of suspicious supplier company account payments.
The supplier was a maintenance company, which carried out occasional work at the clients venue. The client were unaware of any work being carried out by the company in the last 18 months, the account details concerned having been dormant for a long period of time. This could have been one of the first Red Flags in regard to fraud.
In a 4 week period 15 invoices had been paid, starting with $200.00 and ending with $23,000 and $25,000.
The company concerned denied sending any of the invoices concerned, or receiving any of the payments.
The invoices concerned had apparently been authorised and paid by two members of staff. Both members of staff denied authorising the payments, computer records showed that both of their passwords had been used in regard to these transactions.
The bank account details had recently been changed by a third member of staff. The company feared that they may have a conspiracy to commit fraud involving several members of staff.
One member of staff had been with the company for several years, he had been through a recent divorce and was known to have serious debts.
The second member of staff had only been with the company about 5 months, he had no known motives to commit theft.
The accounting system concerned was SAP, the new member of staff had by far the best knowledge and understanding of this accounting programme, this was one of the reason's he had been recruited.
We elected to interview immediately all members of staff concerned. The first gave no cause for concern, no signs dishonesty or deception, however initially could not explain how his password could have been used. Then later recalled providing his password to the other member of staff concerned.
The member of staff who had changed the bank account details stated she had done this at the request of the company concerned, having received a forwarded email from her colleague. She again showed no signs of dishonesty.
The newer member of staff initially denied any knowledge, but when informed that we had requested the account details for the account number concerned, he quickly admitted fraud against his company.
He had used an old saving's account, changing the supplier bank account number for his account.
He had created a false email from the supplier company, requesting that their banking details be changed to this new number. He then forwarded this fictitious email to the member of staff concerned at the company, requesting that she deal with this matter.
The male had no previous convictions for dishonesty type offences.
He then commenced processing the false invoices, starting with $200 to see if the fraud would work. He then rapidly increased the amounts. Eventually he started to get concerned that it was his details that were shown as processing the transactions.
He sent an email to a colleague on his team, stating that he was testing a new credit note procedure, and that he needed his password. The colleague passed over his password.
Future fraudulent transactions were done using this password.
Motive
Simple greed, he used the cash to buy new furniture, TV, DVD, Playstation, clothing, paid off $6,000 debt to the IRD, $5,000 to father in law, $5,000 for credit card. He also booked a $4,000 holiday in Australia
We recovered all items purchased with stolen cash, obtained refund to company concerned booked holiday, refund from IRD and credit card company .
If you are concerned about employee theft and fraud give Daniel Toresen a call on 0800747633 or drop us a line here.