The Fraud Examiner
An Investigator’s Advice: Keep an Open Mind
November 2013
ACFE Member Profile
Jill
Battley, CFE, serves as divisional director for Haymarket Risk Management,
where she investigates fraud and implements measures to detect and prevent it. Previously,
Battley was an agent at New Scotland Yard. She shared with us some of her
experiences in the field.
Q. What led
you to this type of work?
A. An inquiring mind coupled with a passion for probity.
Q. You
handled many complex, international investigations while at New Scotland Yard,
including kidnapping cases. How often did your work involve fraud? And what
types of fraud were most common?
A. Fraud
cuts across most serious criminality (such as) art and high value jewelry thefts, which are achieved through careful planning and pretext. The key to all investigations, but particularly
fraud, is the initial information development and then looking at the best
option to achieve the required outcome. Inevitably this is done by taking the investigation through stages ranging
from undercover covert work to fully overt investigations.
Q. Were
there similarities in the way you would investigate kidnapping, ransom and/or
blackmail cases – and fraud cases?
A. There
was commonality in just about every case in terms of pre-planning, research,
surveillance, informant handling and ultimately in planning and coordinating
the confrontation of the perpetrators. Similarly, all these cases end up
in an interview scenario, the difference being that in complex fraud cases the
perpetrators were often more likely to come clean when confronted with
incontrovertible evidence than your average armed robber.
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