Internal Fraud Case Study
COVER STORY: INTERNAL FRAUD CASE STUDY
Prepare a two-to-three page case study report on the following case: COVER STORY: INTERNAL FRAUD on pages 104-106 in Chapter 4: Billing Schemes of the Fraud Examination text by Wells. Discuss the coincidences involved in this case study. Use the 2009 Global Fraud Survey (also located in Doc Sharing) for references concerning perpetrator, size of fraud, detection, and controls.
This case is about the $4 million embezzlement fraud by an employee of a magazine publisher, and how the fraud was discovered. The type of fraud discovered was a billing scheme that was found on accident. A billing scheme is, “Any scheme in which a person causes his employer to issue a payment by submitting invoices for fictitious goods or services, inflated invoices or invoices for personal purchases.” 1 In this case, it just so happened that the new chief internal auditor decided to stop by the accounts payable department to collect a series of recently submitted invoices so that he could meet with the vice president to understand how the accounting codes work. In doing so, they found that a number of invoices had been forged. According to the 2010 Global Fraud Studies, “11% of the time, victim organizations either had to stumble onto the fraud or be notified of it by a third party in order to detect it.” 2 With coincidence one, the investigation revealed that the forgeries were coming from the painting operations in its facilities department, in which was overseen by Albert Miano. Miano started his scheme by creating false invoices for the jobs done by painters. He would not reinvoice exactly the same work done during a week, but he would make it look similar to where no one would ever become suspicious. The opportunity for Miano to commit fraud came into play when he was allowed to go and collect the approved invoices and insert his own replicated fraudulent invoices as approved. He also was the one who transported the invoices and collected
Prepare a two-to-three page case study report on the following case: COVER STORY: INTERNAL FRAUD on pages 104-106 in Chapter 4: Billing Schemes of the Fraud Examination text by Wells. Discuss the coincidences involved in this case study. Use the 2009 Global Fraud Survey (also located in Doc Sharing) for references concerning perpetrator, size of fraud, detection, and controls.
This case is about the $4 million embezzlement fraud by an employee of a magazine publisher, and how the fraud was discovered. The type of fraud discovered was a billing scheme that was found on accident. A billing scheme is, “Any scheme in which a person causes his employer to issue a payment by submitting invoices for fictitious goods or services, inflated invoices or invoices for personal purchases.” 1 In this case, it just so happened that the new chief internal auditor decided to stop by the accounts payable department to collect a series of recently submitted invoices so that he could meet with the vice president to understand how the accounting codes work. In doing so, they found that a number of invoices had been forged. According to the 2010 Global Fraud Studies, “11% of the time, victim organizations either had to stumble onto the fraud or be notified of it by a third party in order to detect it.” 2 With coincidence one, the investigation revealed that the forgeries were coming from the painting operations in its facilities department, in which was overseen by Albert Miano. Miano started his scheme by creating false invoices for the jobs done by painters. He would not reinvoice exactly the same work done during a week, but he would make it look similar to where no one would ever become suspicious. The opportunity for Miano to commit fraud came into play when he was allowed to go and collect the approved invoices and insert his own replicated fraudulent invoices as approved. He also was the one who transported the invoices and collected