Is It a CAM or a SCAM?

The fraud examination field has a particularly valuable tool – a predicate, also known as a hypothetical or a hunch. A tenant in a commercial property hired me to verify costs associated with the lease agreement it had made with the landlord years earlier. I had a hunch that certain public records weren’t valid. I did something a bit out of the ordinary, but it paid off handsomely for both the tenant and me.

The deal was that the landlord would construct a 300,000- square-foot office building that the tenant company would rent for 25 years and then buy after making a final payment. Also, the tenant would reimburse the landlord up to $500,000 for any future land development costs the landlord would be required to make over and above the cost of the building itself.