Law Enforcement

There are many openings that you will have on your side when you decide to work within law enforcement.  Some of the careers within this field can include patrol officer, security guard, and even fire inspector.  These men and women are usually the first to arrive on a crime scene and help to document every piece of evidence found that will hold up within the criminal court system in the USA.  A police officer in your area usually will only need a 2-year Associates degree in order to enlist in the training program.

Bailiff

A bailiff is one of the first steps that you can take towards a job within law enforcement.  The bailiff will make sure that everyone within the court room is safe and secure and no weapons of any kind are brought in.  The bailiff will also escort prisoners between court and jail.  Most men and women who start these careers will often move onto jobs such as police officers and other positions where a degree in criminal justice is needed.

Crime Scene Investigator

When a crime has been committed the police will ensure that the scene is secure so that the crime scene investigator can come in and collect the evidence.  As a criminal investigator it will be your job to work among a team of other investigators that all hold skills that are essential to solving a crime and presenting all of the backing evidence in criminal court.  A Bachelor’s degree in Biology is essential to this career as well as credentials within criminal justice.

In this case unassuming accountant Paul Hopes stole £3.7 million from the company in 14 separate sums from £101,000 to £350,000 at a time. Amounts this large should never be under the radar in any accounting system!  Hopes raised fictitious invoices during a three year period for Far East toy suppliers so that he was able to arrange payment into accounts that he controlled. So simple!

He had been a company accountant for 23 years and the company had every trust in him. This is how it usually happens. They did not expect him to be a fraudster so probably did not check what he was up to. His wife of approaching 40 years did not suspect anything either. 

Hopes was spending his ill gotten gains on prostitutes and high living. He even bought one a Bentley. Why? If he was having a mid life crisis why buy an old man’s car? Better an Aston or Porsche or even better – a top of the range Range Rover Sport.

Now he will lose everything after confiscation proceedings and spend several years in jail – if he is approaching 60 now he will be well into retirement when he is released with little chance of earning. So not worth doing at all.

It is surprising that such a large organisation did not have basic anti fraud controls in place to stop this happening! How much would it cost to implement a system of supervision and review, account vetting and credit limit monitoring? The cost of implementing and regularly reviewing such a system would be a lot less than the final bill to Toys R Us for this escapade. It was not even the company’s systems that discovered the fraud, which merrily escaped both the internal and external auditors for three years running.

There is a mature anti-fraud industry that is not used enough by companies world wide. For a modest amount, a fraud prevention expert can review systems of any size of organisation. However, it appears that these concerns would rather spend 10 times the amount investigating even larger losses when the fraudster strikes – let alone the amount that is stolen. Most fraud experts, myself as a forensic accountant specialising in fraud included, will provide initial advice free of charge that could save huge amounts in the long run – even if we hope to get your business!

The second form of charity fraud seems to be the most prevalent. Unscrupulous fraudsters set up a business with the sole intention of exploiting people’s good nature and willingness to support good causes. A good example of charity frauds or, more appropriately charity scams, is the con managed by support publishing companies. These are real publishing businesses set up as get rich quick ideas by those who do not mind using the name of a charity in vain to get people to part with cash. It is a tele-sales operation often run from a home study, or even in a couple of cases from the con man’s bedroom. Some operations can be quite big utilising rented office space and a team of a dozen or more sales persons. The first call to “hook” unsuspecting businesses may be:

“Are you interested in placing an advert on the Good Cause Child Safety Wall Planner? This is a great commercial business opportunity for your business as we will be distributing 10,000 planners to other businesses in your post code area. We will not be contacting any other (your business) so there will be no competition for your advert.  You will be helping in the worthy cause of Child Safety being run by the Good Cause Charity. For only £250….”

On some occasions there is a publication and money does go to a charity. In practice these support publishing scams only circulate the publication to each advertiser (to satisfy them that the publication is real) and little if any of the funds raised goes to the good cause! The money pays the wages and business overheads and keeps the company directors in luxurious lifestyles.

Charity frauds such as these are rife these days as they are simple to run and do not need a lot in the way of initial investment. When the authorities close one another one opens in its place. There is a ready pool of experienced tele-sales operators in the North West of England that move from one business to the other spreading their experience and skills of this fraud as they go.

Honest people have to be a little more cautious when making a donation to a charity. Try to say “no” if you cannot be certain. At least state categorically that no donations will be agreed to unless detailed paperwork is received first. Then you can check to see if the charity is real and that it does endorse the wall planner or other booklet/diary that is being published.

It does seem incredible that the bankers were allowed to get away with such irresponsible activities, ridiculous investment strategies and daft credit selling to those that plainly could not afford to. To me this is the real fraud, the way in which the UK has been run over the past decade or so, the wastage of public funds, the culture of public sector crass spending yet cutting back on important things.

Other news picked up this morning – Leeds University is funding a £31,000 year-long research student to look at lap dancing. This is the University that could not afford to put together a decent first year in zoology for my daughter and tried to make her to the same work as the cell biologists and biochemists! Please…if she was an academic fine…The zoology course tutor admitted to her that funding did not allow for a dedicated introduction to the course. So she will have to start again next year on a different course with a head start of a student loan for nothing!

What else…whilst I am ranting…climate change? Well the Saudis have ammunition now to support their self-interest position that there is no global warming. Breathtaking. I guess we will all have to muddle through an increasingly polluted life and hope things do not go belly up in our own life time!

Well with that off my chest I can get on with some work I suppose. There are plenty of people out there who think like me about the wastage of money and the self serving interest of polliticians and global industry. They decide to commit fraud and not pay their taxes. I just grumble and try to investigate them! I suppose it is the way of the world.

Real time problems for me include asset stripping businesses into insolvency and then sometimes re-establishing them as phoenix companies. These can be investigated using S447 Companies Act powers for the Insolvency Service, by investigating on behalf of an insolvency practitioner using Insolvency Act 1986 powers or investigating with no powers at all. This last option is the hardest – and I find myself in such a position with one case at the moment. It demostrates how hard it is for the individual, the private shareholder or customer, to investigate and find a solution when he has been wronged without going through the expense of litigation. Commercial litigation, attempting to get a recovery of assets or losses, is only worth doing when the amount at steak is great (at least more than £1 million). Costs are never going to be less than £100,000 (legal, accounting etc) even if the case is straight forward.

Reliance on the regulators should be better for dealing with general run of the mill frauds and losses. Fraud investigation experts are expensive unless they can be utilised efficiently and expert fraud advice is difficult to find.