Fraud detection in the company

One of the most common crimes committed in companies are those involving dishonest contractors. Employee fraud is also not uncommon. Keeping everything under control is the only way out, but in the routine of everyday duties, some things can escape us. At your request, we will disclose fraud or theft in the workplace. We will also check whether your company has fallen victim to economic crime due to cooperation with an unreliable contractor.

Fraud in transactions between entrepreneurs

There are many methods to deceive the owners or managers of the company by dishonest contractors. Business owners should be especially careful when they receive a great deal from entities they know little about or have never done business with. The common denominator of almost all economic crimes is the promise of easy and quick profit. Therefore, receiving a unique offer from someone with whom we have never entered into a business relationship before should trigger a red light.

To inspire trust, a dishonest contractor may first build a positive opinion by completing the transaction several times, and then suddenly disappear without a trace with another unpaid invoice. In the meantime, he starts another company and cheats new people.

There are also the opposite situations – a dishonest supplier receives an advance payment for goods that the company will never see. This practice is quite common and occurs on a large scale – usually it is extortion of funds from several companies at the same time. After which contact with such a supplier suddenly ends.

There is another way to extort money by dishonest contractors – identity theft. Such dishonest contractors impersonate a well-known, quite thriving company on the market. After the transaction is made, the invoice is issued and the money is received, all traces of it are lost.

This also applies to economic cybercrime, when after business talks between contractors are completed, the transaction is finalized and payment for goods or services is made. At this point, cybercriminals may step in, intercepting an invoice from an e-mail, replacing the bank account number on it. Finally, the money is transferred to the criminal’s account number.

Another threat to the entrepreneur may be unwitting participation in a tax carousel (VAT carousel). Even though he himself complies with tax obligations and settles all obligations, a dishonest contractor may not fulfill this obligation. Pretending to run legitimate business, after making numerous commercial transactions and extorting money from the State Treasury, the fraudster simply disappears from the market. An honest entrepreneur can get involved in tax fraud unintentionally and easily, but it is much more difficult to get out of such a situation unscathed. Especially since the punishment can be really severe – in extreme cases, even 25 years in prison or a multi-million dollar fine.

When should you seek help from a private investigator?

What should arouse your suspicions? If the counterparty:

• has been registered for less than 3 months and supplies goods on a large scale,
• has a low share capital, while concluding contracts for large sums of money,
• does not have financial statements submitted to the National Court Register for previous years,
• offers goods whose prices are not close to market prices (by 20% or more),
• has a virtual address under which more companies are registered, it means that it is worth looking at its activities and considering making commercial transactions with it.

Don’t let a scammer enter into a business relationship with you or get you involved in tax fraud. We will verify whether things are happening in your company that may expose you to losses. We will carefully check whether your contractor is a reliable business partner:

• we will scan its VAT status in Poland and other countries,
• we will review websites,
• we will check its data in other registers, including the National Court Register and CEiDG,
• we will verify the scale of its operations, share capital, persons authorized to represent it,
• we will review documents related to commercial transactions (shipping documents, orders, all correspondence),
• we will find out if it has all the necessary licenses and permits,
• we will carry out a discreet observation,
• if you have been cheated, we will help you collect evidence that you will present during the court process and which will help you recover lost receivables and clear you of charges of cooperation with the fraudster.

Regardless of whether you have any suspicions or are convinced of the honesty of the contractor – no one is worth trusting to the end. As an entrepreneur, you risk a lot, so if you want to be sure of reliable cooperation, it is worth showing limited trust. And even if you have already fallen victim to dishonest cooperation, it is not too late. Contact us – we are waiting for your call!

Employee fraud

Fraud within enterprises is the cause of a significant part of their financial problems. Fraudulent actions of employees are extremely difficult to detect. They often go unnoticed, especially when they concern employees with many years of work experience in a given company. An unsuspecting employer falls victim to a scam by an employee he trusts.

The longer the fraudster works for the company, the greater the losses incurred by the company as a result of his misconduct. The sectors most vulnerable to employee fraud are: banking and finance, public and government administration and manufacturing sectors.

Motive, occasion and justification – these three factors drive dishonest employees to commit fraud and abuse. The greatest threats to enterprises and the most common abuses are presented in a group of three basic categories:

• corruption – that is, the use of position for private gain. In other words, it is a situation in which a person, in order to achieve a goal, offers or gives undue financial benefits (and not only financial ones),
• falsification of financial statements – usually it will be overstatement or understatement of revenues and assets,
• misappropriation of assets – usually theft of cash and tangible goods or their misuse, providing fictitious data for settlements (the most common type of employee fraud).

Do you suspect that one of your lower-level employees or management has committed fraud to the detriment of your company? Or maybe you just want to make sure that everything works as it should in your company and that you employ honest people? When it comes to the safety and future of your company, any reason is good for conducting a discreet investigation.

We can conduct an economic investigation during which:

• we will develop a detailed action plan, divided into individual stages,
• we will observe people and places,
• we will conduct a discreet environmental interview and field activities,
• we will collect material in the form of documents, statements, protocols, invoices, monitoring recordings, electronic data from office equipment,
• we will evaluate the losses incurred,
• we will prepare a detailed report with evidence.

Advantages of conducting a company investigation

The advantages of such an investigation include:

• detection of fraudsters and perpetrators of crimes and mechanisms of their operation or clearing of charges,
• checking the honesty of employees and the efficiency of their work,
• signaling to employees in the future that fraud will be prosecuted,
• recovery of cash or property,
• obtaining and securing evidence in order to punish the perpetrators,
• to prevent further or potential crimes,
• protecting the company against information leakage.

Our expert knowledge, many years of experience and knowledge of the psychological mechanisms of the phenomenon is invaluable in detecting abuses and frauds in the company. Call us – we are available at any time of the day or night.