Fraud

Is the cost of reducing fraud risk greater than the loss from a fraud incident?

I recently had the opportunity to visit with Sam Antar, convicted felon and former CFO of Crazy Eddie. This is cross-posted from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.

During our interview, Mr. Antar suggested a reason why businesses don’t put enough effort into fraud prevention and detection. He said the cost of deterring fraud may be more expensive than the consequences of fraud. Before I refine the concept, look at some costs he mentioned:

  • In the corporate world, particularly companies that have grown for a while, there needs to be a lot of systems put in place to deter and mitigate fraud risk.
  • There needs to be an audit committee and they need to have resources available to them. Translate that to they have authority to hire legal and accounting experts. They need training personally. This is expensive.
  • The audit committee, consisting of skilled and knowledgeable people, must have a direct line of contact to the Board of Directors. That is expensive in terms of time.
  • The Board of Directors has to have a substantial amount of financial skills. That is expensive in terms of time and dollars for training and dollars for their access to expert resources.
  • At some point in the growth curve, there needs to be a robust, skilled internal audit department. That could get quite expensive, if you look at it only in terms of cash outflows.

I would add to that the time involved to implement quality controls, policies, and procedures. Those will take a lot of time for the finance & accounting team. In turn, those procedures will take time for operational staff to follow. All of that translates into more staff.

That can get costly fast.

What is the cost of a fraud incident

Nonprofits cannot *prevent* fraud but they can reduce the risk

Sam Antar is a convict and former CPA. He was the CFO of Crazy Eddie, which by his description was an intentionally fraudulent business.

I recently had opportunity to interview him by phone. Will have more of our conversation in future posts.

What I’m going to do in these discussions is combine his comments and ideas with my thoughts. Cross-posted from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.

Advice for charities

I asked him what advice he would have for small charities to prevent fraud.

Wow, was that a mistake. I should not have used the word “prevent.”

You can’t prevent fraud. If someone is intending to steal or is completely determined to cook the books, they will find a way.

Tragedy of Fraud series now available in print as well as e-book formats

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Both books in my Tragedy of Fraud series are now available in print format from Amazon.

The newest book:

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Tragedy of Fraud – Insider Trading Edition describes – Scott London’s long fall from Big 4 audit partner to prison inmate.

Click the link for your reading preference:

First book in the series:

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Tragedy of Fraud – The Ripple Effects from Fraud and the Wages Earned – Consequences of fraud spread far. There is a long list of well-earned wages from fraud that will be paid in full.

Available in your preferred format:

Another view of the devastation caused by a fraudster

Looking closely at a specific fraud case shows the depth of the damage caused by fraud. That also lets us see the horrible impact a fraud has on the fraudster and his or her family.

Take a look at the story of Amy Wilson, who stole $350,000 from her employer. She served four years in prison. She is working to restore her life and has made a lot of progress.

What could you learn from the video?

Listen as she tells of the devastation she caused her dear husband and beloved children.

Listen as she tells of the betrayal she caused her oh so nice employer.

Listen for clues on how you could take steps that might prevent this kind of devastation from shredding your ministry.

 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8WKz0Happ8&feature=player_embedded]

 

If you want to learn more of her story, you could visit her website: …

The world’s oldest profession? Fraudster.

I listened to a CPE class by Sam Antar last week (Crazy Eddie CFO and ex-CPA Sam Antar Shows You How He Cooked the Books). Great class, in case you are looking for 2 hours of CPE. (Cross posted from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)

He suggested that unlike what has been said for a long time, prostitution is not the world’s oldest profession.

Instead, he suggested that committing fraud is the world’s oldest profession.

How can that be?

Go back to the garden of Eden. The serpent deceived Eve through a knowing misrepresentation of the truth in order to deceive her and take something from her. His intent was to harm her.

Definition of fraud

Primer on fraud in local governments

If you work in a local government, are in leadership there, or provide audits in that sector, you really ought to check out Charles Hall’s book, The Little Book of Local Government Fraud Prevention.

I bought & read a copy a while back and really, really want to write a review of the book, but haven’t been able to pull together my thoughts.  (Sorry Charles!) It is a good read.

Until I pull together my thoughts, just know I believe you would benefit from reading the book.

Arriving soon at an e-retailer near you: Tragedy of Fraud, Insider Trading Edition – The fall from Big 4 audit partner to prison inmate.

Debut appearance of the cover, hot off the digital press:

 

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My newest book is in the last stages of editing. Hope to move into conversion to e-book format soon. Will be released in the next couple of weeks.

As you know, I’ve been following the story of Scott London closely since the day the story broke. Mr. London was KPMG regional audit PIC for the southwest region.

He was caught passing inside information to his golf buddy. When confronted, he quickly confessed and plead guilty. He received a fourteen month jail sentence and is now a prison inmate at the Taft Correctional Institution.

You can now read of his journey from the lofty world of senior leadership to prison inmate in book format. The dozens of blog posts covering the story have been combined in chronological order instead of being spread all over the blog in reverse chronology. The posts have been edited slightly and the sequence changed a bit.

Available soon

The story of Mr. London’s fall will soon be available on your phone, e-reader, tablet, or other reading platform of choice. Will be available at the Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes stores.

Print copy will be available at Amazon soon after the electronic version is published.

Total BNP Paribas fine is $8.97 billion for money laundering

I previously mentioned the total penalty BNP Paribas agreed to pay for laundering money to evade U.S. trade sanctions was $8,833.6M. The updated WSJ article said the total settlement is $8.97B. After realizing the disconnect, I went back to the federal plea deal. I missed that amount until this morning.

The forfeiture is $8,833.6M, which represents the amount the feds say on page 1 of the plea deal is …

Guilty plea to 3 criminal counts, $8.8B fine, and 1 year ban on dollar settlements for BNP Paribas’ laundering of $190B

BNP Paribas has settled up for their systemic efforts to use the U.S. banking system to launder money for Iran, Sudan, and Cuba.

Criminal pleas

Here are the plea agreements:

  • federal level, 1 guilty plea – 1 count of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act
  • state level, 2 guilty pleas – 1 count Falsifying Business Records in First Degree and 1 count Conspiracy in the Fifth Degree.

Volumes

The dollar amount of laundered money is 6 times larger than any previous press reports suggest. All earlier comments said about $30B was involved.

Just how harsh is that $2.5 billion fine for Credit Suisse? Not as bad as you might think.

Previous post described the guilty plea by Credit Suisse on charges they willfully aided U.S. citizens in evading income tax.

Fine is $2.5 billion. That is a lot of money. Or is it?

Follow me on a journey to see how big a deal that may be.

Penalty in terms of months or days of net income

Credit Suisse admits to one felony for aiding tax evasion.

After unspecified decades of deliberately helping unnumbered thousands of customers evade income taxes, on Monday Credit Suisse Group plead guilty to one felony charge of aiding tax evasion. They will pay a fine of $2.5 billion.

I think this may be the end of “too big to jail.” Perhaps.

I’ll take a look at the modest size of the fine in relation to earnings in the next post.

Full service money laundering

Minor updates on banks meeting justice

In the justice grinds slow department….

There has been much speculation of a settlement in the works for Credit Suisse for their efforts to help Americans avoid tax by secretly stashing funds in Swiss accounts. Reports are firming up that the bank will write checks of $2.5 billion to settle up. Will also take one guilty plea on a criminal charge.

The Wall Street is reporting Credit Suisse to Pay $2.5 Billion in Pact.