16th Annual ACFE Fraud Conference & Exhibition: The watchword was 'deterrence'
Their heads were spinning. The 1,500 plus fraud examiners from 50 countries left the 16th Annual ACFE Fraud Conference & Exhibition in Washington, D.C. in July with the beneficial effects of information overload. With just about every possible fraud examination topic covered, the attendees would take weeks - months - to digest it all. But one theme was repeated by speakers throughout the general sessions, 11 tracks, and 88 breakouts: deterrence.

Advanced Forensic Financial Analysis, Part Two
Fraud examiners must hone their financial statement fraud detection methods to overtake the sophisticated crimes of corporate America.

Money laundering: Airing out dirty cash, By I. B. Gashinbaki, CFE,
Criminals will always have to clean dirty money but fraud examiners need to be aware of the common ways many launderers infiltrate financial institutions worldwide.

Audit Those Vendors
A vendor can be an entity’s best colleague or worst nemesis. Keep the relationship pleasant and successful by conducting vendor audits.

FRAUDBASICS: The Bank Secrecy Act Fighting Money Laundering Globally, Part Two
The Bank Secrecy Act has affected anti-money laundering efforts worldwide.

Basic Recipes for Slush Funds: Circumventing Internal Controls Through Slush Concoctions
In the beginning, the agency managers meant to use the 'unofficial' bank account for good and not for evil, as the comic book super-heroes would say.

Behind the Bankruptcy: Fraud Examiners Need to Look Beyond the Records in Bankruptcy Cases
Corporations or individuals heading toward bankruptcy often try to conceal assets from clamoring creditors.

The Big Apple Delivers: Fraud Examiners Get the Instruction they Need At Eleventh Annual Fraud Conference & Trade Show
Broadway turned out to be the right way for fraud examiners from around the globe as they converged on the Big Apple for the Eleventh Annual Fraud Conference and Trade Show and got what they needed – practical, meaty instruction seasoned with invaluable

Blood Money: Lab Case Highlights Nationwide Medicaid Fraud Units
Mohammad Akthat Javid thought he had the perfect scam: he would magically transform red blood into green cash.

Case in Point: Check Kiting. Extending the Float
John the controller tried to buy a little time with a check kiting scheme to keep two businesses alive. Unfortunately for him, the time he bought was 10 months in prison.

CASE IN POINT: Bogus Tax Reaps Easy Money
How would you feel if you found out that the grocery store where you shop had been charging you a non-existent sales tax for the last 10 years?

The CFE Academy Experience
When I was notified that my department was sending me to the CFE Academy to learn about computer fraud, I was delighted.

Charles Ponzi and His Scheme
Charles (Carlo) Ponzi (1878-1949) was an Italian immigrant with few marketable skills, but a persuasive personality and knowledge about greed psychology. From 1919-1920, he developed a "get rich quick" scheme, purchasing international postal reply coupons overseas at cheaper rates overseas and selling them in the United States at a profit.

Check fraud: Separating Money from Worthless Paper
Despite the heavy use of credit cards and online payments, and the redoubled efforts of the FBI and police anti-fraud units, check fraud continues to increase. CFEs can benefit from reviewing the rudiments of check fraud detection and prevention, and the new twists.

Check Washers Launder Money the Easy Way
Check washing, a method of altering checks to steal from personal and business accounts, has been in existence since the mid-1980s, but the crude scheme is increasing.

Effective solutions for combating employee theft: Combating internal fraud in the banking industry: Page 1
Fraud continues to prosper in the banking industry with a variety of fraud schemes. This session will be a practical discussion of fraud schemes that are perpetrated by banking insiders. You'll also learn some of the solutions that your organization can implement to prevent the fraud from occurring.

Effective solutions for combating employee theft: Combating internal fraud in the banking industry: Page 2
Fraud continues to prosper in the banking industry with a variety of fraud schemes. This session will be a practical discussion of fraud schemes that are perpetrated by banking insiders. You'll also learn some of the solutions that your organization can implement to prevent the fraud from occurring.

Commercial Mortgage Fraud: Cash Out, Fraud In - PART ONE
There is no shortage of desperate or fraudulent property owners in todays market for commercial mortgage loans. Cash-out refinancing is one favorite way to bail out of a troubled property. This primer offers advice to fraud examiners, lenders, and appraisers on how to spot and prevent these and other frauds.

Commercial Mortgage Fraud: When Fraudsters Bet the House and Win, Part Two
It’s a volatile combination: high volume of cash-out refinancing loans, declining performance of commercial properties, and relentless production pressures on internal loan officers. The resulting concoction often is fraud.

Computer forensics: Sanitizing Old Computers
In an age when government agencies and private companies are striving to keep up with current technology, old computers are being sold or recycled to recoup some of the cost associated with upgrading. Does your office "clean" the hard drives before the systems are recycled? How effective is the process they use?

FRAUDBASICS: Con Schemes Abound, Part One
Investment swindles and con schemes have been around for centuries, but the Internet allows perpetrators to reach a wider audience at little cost.

FRAUDBASICS: Con Schemes Abound, Part Two
Both the savvy and naïve are eligible prey to new business con schemes. Consumer education is the greatest weapon in the war against the pervasive scammers.

Using the law to fight fraud: Conducting kickbank investigations
Kickback investigations can be difficult. Evidence is hard to find and witnesses are even harder to turn. This session will focus on the investigation and resolution of kickback investigations including looking for the warning signs that you'll most likely come across and evaluating the outside parties making the payments.

Construction Fraud: Beware the ‘Outside Facilitator’
Crafty manipulators will use weak employees at construction job sites to defraud companies for many months – long before the home office smells any problems.

Practical solutions to current fraud issues: Corporate Identity Theft
While you may be familiar with the theft of an individual’s identity, corporations are also susceptible to this costly crime. This session will discuss the various types of impersonations that are being used and suggested ways to protect the corporation through detection and prevention.

Effective solutions for combating employee theft: Creative employee theft schemes & how to detect them
Just when you think that you've seen every way an employee can steal from you, a new one comes along. Employees are always coming up with creative ways of making you part with your money. In this session you'll learn some of these ways and especially how you can detect them, the first step in stopping them.

Credit Card Fraud: Your Card in Their Hands
Credit card fraud continues to be a menace especially in developing countries. But credit card companies and issuing banks are working to stay one step ahead of large global syndicates.

The Demise of Cassie: To the last, Chadwick Screams her Innocence
This article concludes the story of Cassie Chadwick. It is excerpted from a chapter in the book, Frankensteins of Fraud, by Joseph T. Wells, CFE, CPA, the Association’s founder and Chairman.

Dirty Money Takes Caribbean Cruise: Sweeping Swiss Legislation Causes Money Launderers to Seek Sweeter Pastures
The Swiss Money Laundering Act (MLA), which went into effect April 1998, sets an even higher standard than U.S. money laundering controls.

FBI Combats Financial Fraud with CFEs
Brian Lamkin, chief of the FBI's Financial Crimes Section, directs his team of agents and analysts to tackle fraud while working toward additional recognition for CFEs.

Financial Exploitation of Elders
Fraud examiners should know the red flags of elder financial abuse and how to identify and protect those who may be vulnerable.

Fixing Prices and Rigging Bids
Fraud examiners and auditors should familiarize themselves with the types of cases that can violate U.S. antitrust regulations.

Foiling Internet Fraudsters: Preventing Internet credit card fraud
Batman once said, "If only they would use their genius for good instead of evil!" While Internet fraudsters will never stop finding new ways to use cyberspace to victimize, fraud examiners now have methods to prevent their crimes rather than just trying to investigate after the fact.

Follow the MAPP: Develop an Aggressive Way to Fight Money Laundering
These four steps can help you MAPP out a plan to fight money laundering within your organization.

Fighting fraud with technology: Following the cash
While there are many fraud schemes that fraudsters perpetrate, most involve, in some way, cash. Cash is embezzled, commingled, moved, and spent. Following the cash and proving the fraud can be a difficult task for all but the most experienced. In this session, you'll learn how to follow the cash money trail, and how to recover it in spite of the many hurdles, some new that you'll have to jump.

Fool Me Once, Fool Me Twice
Two collection agencies - which bought delinquent credit card and other bank debt - raised millions based upon misrepresented collection histories and the misapplication of GAAP.

Fraud Edge: A FORUM FOR FRAUD-FIGHTING FACULTY IN HIGHER ED
I've always been very proud of the profession I chose, but that pride has been tested several times in the past few years since the Enron scandal with Andersen's complicity. After the Enron debacle, I received cartoon clippings from my friends and colleagues for what seemed like an eternity poking fun at the integrity, or lack thereof, of those in the accounting profession.

Protecting the public interest: Fraud in the government, Lessons learned while building an investigative procurement fraud detection program
It’s a fraud that affects both the public and private sector — procurement fraud. It’s also a fraud that is difficult to detect. In this session, you’ll learn how to build a proactive investigative procurement fraud detection program and how to avoid making some mistakes that could be costly and program counter-productive. Also discussed will be procurement fraud risk analysis, financial system data-mining, and the need for procurement fraud referrals.

Fraud Edge: Cleaning our Own House. De-frauding the halls of academe
As Certified Fraud Examiners, we learn that three factors, collectively referred to as the Fraud Triangle, may portend fraudulent behavior. According to the late Donald Cressey, when pressures/incentives, opportunity, and rationalization converge, the environment is ripe for fraud. Although many may presuppose that academe is above such behavior, history has shown otherwise. All types of organizations are susceptible to fraud - even colleges and universities.

Fraud Bytes. Root kits: Digital evidence collection of volatile data
Admittedly, some of the information presented here is on the advanced side of the curve. However, for those who understand the growing need for digital forensics in fraud examination, the latest evolution in the field involves new forensic tools and methods for gathering evidence from live systems. I'll continue to bring you developments when I think that they may have an impact on the way we do fraud examinations of digital evidence.

Fraud in the Cards: Credit Card Misuse Explodes Globally
Fraud examiners can help tackle the problem by exposing credit card fraudsters' methods and by promoting training in the cards industry, government, and law enforcement.

Fraud on the Internet: Postal Inspectors Confront a New Challenge
A new breed of scam artists is using modern technology to swindle far more money than Sutton ever dreamed.

Fraudsters in cyberspace: Growing global Internet menace, Part Two
Law enforcement, regulatory authorities, and consumer organizations have alerted the public to Internet fraud schemes over the past few years. Here are 17 types of schemes that have most victimized Internet users worldwide.

From the President
April 2005 may set a record for the largest number of false filings submitted to the government in a single month. These filings will come in two streams. Both will cause substantial harm to society, but in the short-term the smaller group of false filings may actually be the bigger problem.

Get Corporate Crooks on the Straight-and-Narrow
Legislation mandating executive transparency can go a long way toward preventing fraud.

Global Risks Reduced: International Business Doesn’t Have to Be Risky
Being aware of and prepared for issues like personal safety, office supply needs, technology, and language barriers will help you adapt more smoothly to a foreign environment. Even more important is understanding the business culture of the country you’

Protecting the public interest: Fraud in government. Grant/Contract fraud in the public sector
Not all fraud involves the theft of assets, but rather some involve the misuse of assets. Every year, Federal, State and Local Governments award thousands of dollars in grant/contracts to vendors. However, the grant money is not always prudently managed. This session focuses on the ways and manner in which government grants are misapplied or misused, oftentimes to the benefit of the program administrator.

Hanging Global Money Launderers Out to Dry, Part One
Global money laundering has ballooned - some estimates range as high as $500 billion a year worldwide. But overt and covert methods can trace the funds, find the evidence, and make the fraudsters pay.

Hanging Global Money Launderers Out to Dry, Part Two
In Part One, we described the typical sources of illicit funds formoney laundering, money laundering methods, and how to detect illicit financial transactions. Here we describe how to use the information to make the case.

A Happy Ending to a Potential Credit Card Fraud
You can study credit card scams and read about credit card fraud, as I have, but until it is your name on the application, you don’t really understand that sick feeling of being victimized.

Hollywood Sparkles with 13th Annual Fraud Conference & Trade Show
Global fraud examiners learn the latest fraud examination techniques and theory, network with their peers, and cruise down the Sunset Strip.

How Ponzi Prospered: Famous Scheme Produced Millions Before Pyramid Collapsed
Charles Ponzi, an immigrant from Italy to Boston, Mass., wasn't the first to foist an illegal pyramid scheme on the public but he did manage to develop it into a fine art.

The Hypnotic Cassie Chadwick: In Early 1900s, She Swindled Millions and Left Ruined Men in her Wake
Excerpted from the book, Frankensteins of Fraud, by Joseph T. Wells, CFE, CPA, the Association’s founder and Chairman.

Identity Theft: The Next Corporate Liability Wave?
Your phone rings. It’s Special Agent Bert Ranta. The FBI is investigating a crime ring involved in widespread identity theft. It has led to millions of dollars of credit card and loan losses for lenders, and havoc in the lives of the 10,000 victims. By identifying links between the victims, the FBI has discovered where the personal data appear to have come from: your company. The victims are some of your customers.

Identity Crisis Survival: Learning the Scams of Identity Theft
Identity theft ruins reputations, destroys credit ratings, and empties bank accounts, and in most cases, there is nothing anybody can do about it.

Identity Theft: Hunting Down and Nabbing the Thieves - Part 1
Catching identity thieves requires solid cooperation and hard-hitting procedures among fraud examiners, auditors, law enforcement, postal inspectors, the courts, banks, credit card companies, business owners, government, and many others.

iFraud. Valuing continuing professional education: Changing insurance field demands it
Business is constantly evolving; it's much more high tech then it was and we now operate in a global environment. Despite the fact that the insurance industry has been around hundreds of years, the only constant is change.

Effective solutions for combating employee theft. Ignoring indicators equals fraud: a case study
Financial statement audit failures contribute to the untimely discovery and prevention of fraud. How and why does this happen? The appropriate use of Generally Accepted Auditing Standards can identify fraud risk resulting in deterrence and discovery. In this session, GAAS will be discussed and common deficiencies in work will be highlighted together with the disastrous fraud schemes that were discovered too late.

Effective solutions for combating employee theft: Implementing and managing a fraud hotline
One of the most common methods for detecting fraud is by a tip from an employee, customer, vendor, or an anonymous source. This session will focus on the benefits of utilizing a fraud hotline as well as what should be reported, and how to develop effective procedures for recording, reporting, and tracking hotline information.

Inside Job: A Guide to U.S. Insider Trading
U.S. insider trading is relatively easy to commit but extremely difficult to prove. Here is a primer for fraud examiners explaining the problem, how to tell if a trade is illegal, and what can be done to detect and prevent this popular crime.

Practical solutions to current fraud issues: International Financial Fraud
Millions of dollars can be transferred today from one country to another by a few mouse clicks. If the transfer is backed by a purportedly credible transaction and supporting documents, then the fraud or money laundering scheme becomes even more attractive to the fraudsters.

Fraud in the Public Sector: International Money Laundering
Money laundering knows no borders, so tracing the illicit funds has gotten harder. However, you'll find that this session offers practical advice on how to not only identify illicit funds, but also how to trace them in international crimes.

Internet Transactions at Risk: New Security Solutions are Needed
Fraud examiners and auditors must realize that the Internet is now the preeminent fraud battleground.

Rapid reformer: An interview with Eliot Spitzer, New York state attorney general
Fraud examiners need only basic computer skills and the help of systems administrators to mine for gold and find vital evidence for fraud examinations.

Identity Theft: Interviewing and Prosecuting Suspects, Part 2
Examining identity theft suspects requires systematic, methodical techniques designed to yield evidence for possible prosecution.

Invasion of the Identity Snatchers, Part One
Many say that identity theft is unavoidable, undetectable, and unstoppable. But fraud examiners can use their skills to fight this ubiquitous crime.

Invasion of the Identity Snatchers, Part Two
Though identify theft is growing precipitously, the problem isn't untenable. Fraud examiners need to know current statistics and methods so they can fight this insidious crime.

Investment-bond Fraud: Smiling Faces Asking for Your Retirement Money
David Namer had the perfect place for your retirement money: mid-yield corporate bonds – Private Placement Memorandums – backed by insurance from a top-rated company. It was perfect until the pyramid collapsed. Learn how this convicted former banker took thousands of small investors for almost $35 million.

Using the law to fight fraud: Legal and practical issues related to fraud examinations
In every fraud examination, inevitably, legal issues will find their way into your case and usually at the worst possible time. In this session you'll learn some of the legal issues that you might come across in a fraud examination, and more importantly, how to resolve them before they become a serious problem.

A Legend Passes
The recent death of a well-known criminal left a CFE remembering how the crook committed some of the most convoluted frauds in the 20th century and how they easily could have been prevented.

A Maybe Baby: Adoption Fraud Aided by Internet
What began as a routine income tax review for one of my clients, developed into a case that eventually sent a woman to prison for arranging adoptions of fictitious babies.

Merger and Acquisition Fever: The Expanding Role of Fraud Examiners in the Booming Acquisition Market
By applying their forensic accounting, analytical, and legal skills, fraud examiners can help clients identify potential issues before they commit to purchase a company, preventing unfortunate surprises after the deal has closed.

Money Laundering: Ring Around the White Collar
In money laundering the fraudster disguises the existence, nature, source, ownership, location and disposition of property derived from criminal activity.

Preventing and detecting financial statement fraud: Investigation alter ego companies
Scams involving alter ego companies include diverting assets, hiding income and ownership, are common in bankruptcy fraud, organized crime, tax evasion, and employee embezzlements. This session will focus on discussing how to tie companies together to prove that they are, in fact, one company. Learn how.

Protect Small Business
Small businesses - Especially those that do not have regular audits - have every reason to worry about fraud.

Reserving the Right to Audit the Suspicious Vendor
Right-to-audit clauses in vendor contracts help control fraud and abuse by affording discovery devices in examinations.

Rules for the Written Record
Documenting the case is every bit as important as investigating it. This article looks at how to record the results so end users receive the information they need and, equally essential, the report stands up in court.

Fraud's Finer Points: Case History Applications. Skimming revenue, part one: The highest-risk employee
After a lengthy discussion of accounts receivable fraud, it's time to focus our attention on other prime areas where fraudsters abuse the systems of internal control to raid organizations' treasuries for their own personal benefit. With this column, we begin a journey through the many facets of cash receipting and types of fraud that occur in every organization. Our first step involves skimming: removing funds prior to recording accountable transactions in the accounting system.

Fraud's Finer Points: Skimming revenue, Part Two. Laundering stolen checks
Skimming frauds are perpetrated by employees who remove funds from the organization prior to recording accountability for the transaction in the accounting system. This column continues the discussion on employees stealing checks from the organization.

So That’s Why It’s Called a PYRAMID SCHEME
Fraud comes in many shapes and sizes—and it’s growing faster than ever.

Spam & Popups on the Internet: Gleaming White Fraud
If you ever use the Internet, you know about spam. Unsolicited, bulk e-mails that are sent at one time to several thousand people, are estimated to cost the U.S. economy $9 billion a year, according to a study conducted by Ferris Research.

Swindling the Investor: A Look into Securities Fraud
This article is an excerpt from the Association’s Fraud Examiners Manual, Third Edition, Vol. 1. The article covers the discussion on Securities Fraud, pages 1.1501 to 1.1518.

'Tis the Season to be Wary: Fraudsters Take Advantage of Charitable Spirit During Holidays
The holiday season – it’s a time for giving thanks and wishing good will toward all men, but it’s also a perfect time for con artists to prey on the charitable spirit of others for their own financial gain.

Tracking Troublesome Travelers: Preventing Travel Fraudsters from Flying into the Sunset
Let’s review how fraud examiners can inspect air travel records to find incriminating evidence that can help nail flying fraudsters.

Trends in tech fraud schemes: Part One. Let's (not) do the twist
Here are the technological twists fraud examiners are now up against: crafty phishing e-mails, new online classified scams; and risk of intellectual property loss from MP3 players, music downloading programs, and (yes) lava lamps.

Truth, Transparency, and Accountability with no Political Agenda
An interview with U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker, head of the General Accounting Office

FRAUDBASICS: USA PATRIOT Act and Money Laundering, Part One
The USA PATRIOT Act, signed into law after 9/11, strongly targets suspected money laundering activities and creates new requirements for financial institutions.

Vendor Fraud: Finding Deals Gone Awry
Fraud examiners, working with teams of diverse staff members, can discover deceitful vendors by conducting regular audits.

Whom Do You Trust? Doing Business and Deterring Fraud in a Global e-Marketplace
Eye-to-eye' business deals quickly are being replaced by 'I-to-I' electronic transactions. Speed and efficiency are displacing trust and verification.

The World’s Dumbest Fraudsters
I've searched high and low to bring you examples of the dumbest of the dumbsters. And I admit it up front: The only lesson to be learned is just how stupid some people can be.

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