Home > Articles

The Challenges in Forensic Accounting

Saurav K. Dutta introduces Statistical Techniques for Forensic Accounting: Understanding the Theory and Application of Data Analysis.
This chapter is from the book
  • I spent about ten years exposing corporate and financial fraud for Barron’s magazine, and I found a lot to write about.
  • Ben Stein

1.1. Introduction

Investigating corporate fraud cases is one of the highest priorities of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). At the end of 2011, 726 fraud cases were being actively investigated by various FBI field offices throughout the U.S.,1 which was an approximately 10% increase from the number of cases being pursued at the end of 2010 and a 37% increase over a five-year period. It is estimated that several of these cases resulted in losses to investors exceeding $1 billion.

In response to the growing importance of accounting investigative skills within the Agency, the FBI established a Forensic Accountant Unit in March 2009 to support FBI investigations requiring financial forensics. The creation of this program was the culmination of the FBI’s efforts to advance and professionalize its financial investigative capabilities. The mission of this unit is to develop, manage, and enhance the FBI’s Forensic Accounting and Financial Analysis programs.

Corporate fraud has been a persistent problem in the U.S. economy since the early days of the stock market. One of the oldest and most commonly known frauds is the Ponzi scheme, named after Charles Ponzi, who duped thousands of New England residents into investing in postage stamp speculation back in the 1920s. He promised his investors a 50% return in just 90 days at a time when the annual interest rate at banks was just 5%. He was able to fulfill his promise by using incoming funds to pay off early investors. His name is now synonymous with investment fraud schemes that involve attracting new investor money to fulfill the obligations owed to early investors. As long as the amount of incoming funds in the form of investment by new or existing investors exceeds the outgoing funds that are withdrawn by outgoing investors, the scheme thrives. However, it quickly unfolds in an economic downturn when investors have little excess funds to invest and more investors wish to cash out their investments. In the recent financial crisis of 2007, many investment funds, including that of Bernie Madoff and Stanford International, were found to have engaged in the decade-old Ponzi scheme to defraud investors. In the 1920s, Charles Ponzi’s investors lost upwards of $20 million. About a century later, in 2007 Bernie Madoff’s investors lost upwards of $20 billion.2Although there are obvious red flags to detect Ponzi schemes,3 these are often ignored by trusting investors who are sometimes in awe of the personality, success, and demeanor of the perpetrators.

Investment fund managers who perpetrate Ponzi schemes most often defraud investors by promising high returns. However, other businesses, though not directly engaging in Ponzi schemes, can still defraud investors by painting a false financial picture. By recording fictitious transactions or other accounting gimmicks, a business might inflate income or revenue or understate expenses to paint a rosier picture of its financial prospects. At times, senior officers of public companies with much personal wealth and reputation vested in the financial success of their companies resort to such means. In this chapter you learn about some of the recent well-publicized cases of corporate fraud.

Not all types of corporate fraud are committed by management to misinform investors and other third parties. A majority of occurrences and investigations of fraud involve acts by individuals committed against their organizations. One notable case prosecuted by the FBI in 2011 involved a former vice-president of Citigroup who embezzled more than $22 million from Citigroup over a period of eight years. The perpetrator transferred money from various Citigroup accounts to Citigroup’s cash account and then wired the money to his personal bank account at another bank. False accounting entries were created by the perpetrator to conceal the theft. In this chapter you read about common fraudulent schemes undertaken by employees to steal from the organization and the accounting cover-ups undertaken to conceal the crimes.

The remainder of this chapter discusses the nature of fraud schemes, presents the statistics of fraud investigations conducted by the FBI, and examines trends of various types of fraud. It then briefly covers the common management fraud schemes undertaken in recent years. Next is a discussion of common employee fraud schemes, which summarizes the results of a study conducted by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE). In recent years, with the Internet being so widely accessible, coupled with an immense growth in e-commerce, cyber-crime against businesses is rampant. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the ramifications and challenges imposed by this growing crime.

InformIT Promotional Mailings & Special Offers

I would like to receive exclusive offers and hear about products from InformIT and its family of brands. I can unsubscribe at any time.

Overview


Pearson Education, Inc., 221 River Street, Hoboken, New Jersey 07030, (Pearson) presents this site to provide information about products and services that can be purchased through this site.

This privacy notice provides an overview of our commitment to privacy and describes how we collect, protect, use and share personal information collected through this site. Please note that other Pearson websites and online products and services have their own separate privacy policies.

Collection and Use of Information


To conduct business and deliver products and services, Pearson collects and uses personal information in several ways in connection with this site, including:

Questions and Inquiries

For inquiries and questions, we collect the inquiry or question, together with name, contact details (email address, phone number and mailing address) and any other additional information voluntarily submitted to us through a Contact Us form or an email. We use this information to address the inquiry and respond to the question.

Online Store

For orders and purchases placed through our online store on this site, we collect order details, name, institution name and address (if applicable), email address, phone number, shipping and billing addresses, credit/debit card information, shipping options and any instructions. We use this information to complete transactions, fulfill orders, communicate with individuals placing orders or visiting the online store, and for related purposes.

Surveys

Pearson may offer opportunities to provide feedback or participate in surveys, including surveys evaluating Pearson products, services or sites. Participation is voluntary. Pearson collects information requested in the survey questions and uses the information to evaluate, support, maintain and improve products, services or sites, develop new products and services, conduct educational research and for other purposes specified in the survey.

Contests and Drawings

Occasionally, we may sponsor a contest or drawing. Participation is optional. Pearson collects name, contact information and other information specified on the entry form for the contest or drawing to conduct the contest or drawing. Pearson may collect additional personal information from the winners of a contest or drawing in order to award the prize and for tax reporting purposes, as required by law.

Newsletters

If you have elected to receive email newsletters or promotional mailings and special offers but want to unsubscribe, simply email information@informit.com.

Service Announcements

On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an email. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can deactivate their account information. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.

Customer Service

We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in regard to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone in accordance with the users' wishes when a user submits their information through our Contact Us form.

Other Collection and Use of Information


Application and System Logs

Pearson automatically collects log data to help ensure the delivery, availability and security of this site. Log data may include technical information about how a user or visitor connected to this site, such as browser type, type of computer/device, operating system, internet service provider and IP address. We use this information for support purposes and to monitor the health of the site, identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents and appropriately scale computing resources.

Web Analytics

Pearson may use third party web trend analytical services, including Google Analytics, to collect visitor information, such as IP addresses, browser types, referring pages, pages visited and time spent on a particular site. While these analytical services collect and report information on an anonymous basis, they may use cookies to gather web trend information. The information gathered may enable Pearson (but not the third party web trend services) to link information with application and system log data. Pearson uses this information for system administration and to identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents, appropriately scale computing resources and otherwise support and deliver this site and its services.

Cookies and Related Technologies

This site uses cookies and similar technologies to personalize content, measure traffic patterns, control security, track use and access of information on this site, and provide interest-based messages and advertising. Users can manage and block the use of cookies through their browser. Disabling or blocking certain cookies may limit the functionality of this site.

Do Not Track

This site currently does not respond to Do Not Track signals.

Security


Pearson uses appropriate physical, administrative and technical security measures to protect personal information from unauthorized access, use and disclosure.

Children


This site is not directed to children under the age of 13.

Marketing


Pearson may send or direct marketing communications to users, provided that

  • Pearson will not use personal information collected or processed as a K-12 school service provider for the purpose of directed or targeted advertising.
  • Such marketing is consistent with applicable law and Pearson's legal obligations.
  • Pearson will not knowingly direct or send marketing communications to an individual who has expressed a preference not to receive marketing.
  • Where required by applicable law, express or implied consent to marketing exists and has not been withdrawn.

Pearson may provide personal information to a third party service provider on a restricted basis to provide marketing solely on behalf of Pearson or an affiliate or customer for whom Pearson is a service provider. Marketing preferences may be changed at any time.

Correcting/Updating Personal Information


If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as your postal address or email address), we provide a way to correct or update that user's personal data provided to us. This can be done on the Account page. If a user no longer desires our service and desires to delete his or her account, please contact us at customer-service@informit.com and we will process the deletion of a user's account.

Choice/Opt-out


Users can always make an informed choice as to whether they should proceed with certain services offered by InformIT. If you choose to remove yourself from our mailing list(s) simply visit the following page and uncheck any communication you no longer want to receive: www.informit.com/u.aspx.

Sale of Personal Information


Pearson does not rent or sell personal information in exchange for any payment of money.

While Pearson does not sell personal information, as defined in Nevada law, Nevada residents may email a request for no sale of their personal information to NevadaDesignatedRequest@pearson.com.

Supplemental Privacy Statement for California Residents


California residents should read our Supplemental privacy statement for California residents in conjunction with this Privacy Notice. The Supplemental privacy statement for California residents explains Pearson's commitment to comply with California law and applies to personal information of California residents collected in connection with this site and the Services.

Sharing and Disclosure


Pearson may disclose personal information, as follows:

  • As required by law.
  • With the consent of the individual (or their parent, if the individual is a minor)
  • In response to a subpoena, court order or legal process, to the extent permitted or required by law
  • To protect the security and safety of individuals, data, assets and systems, consistent with applicable law
  • In connection the sale, joint venture or other transfer of some or all of its company or assets, subject to the provisions of this Privacy Notice
  • To investigate or address actual or suspected fraud or other illegal activities
  • To exercise its legal rights, including enforcement of the Terms of Use for this site or another contract
  • To affiliated Pearson companies and other companies and organizations who perform work for Pearson and are obligated to protect the privacy of personal information consistent with this Privacy Notice
  • To a school, organization, company or government agency, where Pearson collects or processes the personal information in a school setting or on behalf of such organization, company or government agency.

Links


This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects Personal Information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this web site.

Requests and Contact


Please contact us about this Privacy Notice or if you have any requests or questions relating to the privacy of your personal information.

Changes to this Privacy Notice


We may revise this Privacy Notice through an updated posting. We will identify the effective date of the revision in the posting. Often, updates are made to provide greater clarity or to comply with changes in regulatory requirements. If the updates involve material changes to the collection, protection, use or disclosure of Personal Information, Pearson will provide notice of the change through a conspicuous notice on this site or other appropriate way. Continued use of the site after the effective date of a posted revision evidences acceptance. Please contact us if you have questions or concerns about the Privacy Notice or any objection to any revisions.

Last Update: November 17, 2020